1921-05-10

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On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. H. S. BELAND (Beauce):: The
Prime Minister is not present or I would ask him whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce a Bill this session to repeal the Conservation Act, as foreshadowed in the speech from the Throne.


Right Hon. C. J. DOHERTY (Minister of Justice):: I am not quite sure, but I am strongly of the opinion that it has been introduced in the Senate.
[Mr. Guthrie.l



BANKRUPTCY ACT AMENDMENT

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On motion of Hon. Hugh Guthrie (Acting Solicitor General), Bill No. 118, to amend the Bankruptcy Act, was read the third time and passed. f!J


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The House resumed from Monday, May 9, the debate on the motion of Sir Henry Drayton (Minister of Finance), that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair for the House to go into Committee of Ways and Means.	-
Hon. W. S. FIELDING (Shelburne and Queen's):: Mr. Speaker, in one important
respect the task which falls to my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) in these days is one that must demand our sympathy rather than adverse criticism. At a time of severe depression, financial, industrial and commercial-a condition which, I am afraid, will have to become worse before it can be better- the hon. gentleman is called upon to devise ways and means for raising enormous sums of money, sums so large as to be almost beyond the comprehension of the average citizen, sums so large that, by comparison, the Budgets of a few years ago, large as they seemed in their day, dwindle into insignificance. In a very large degree we recognize that these demands which the hon. minister is obliged to make are the result of the war, and we must treat them accordingly. The people of Canada willingly, cheerfully, even enthusiastically, entered into the Great War; and now that the war is over, and the day of settlement is come, we must all be prepared to accept the consequences with the utmost possible equanimity. However much we may differ from my hon. friends opposite with regard to some of the methods they employ in the raising - of these moneys, and in their distribution, in all that makes for meeting our obligations arising from the war, in all that may be necessary to make provision for the dependents of those who made the supreme sacrifice, in all that may be necessary to make adequate provision for the men who have come home wholly or partially disabled, in all that is necessary as arising from the war, we desire to share with hon. gentlemen opposite the responsibility and the honour of the occasion. It is when we come to questions not directly arising from the war that we are obliged to differ from those hon. gentlemen.

The situation is a very grave one financially. It calls for very serious deliberation, and for a larger measure of economy than the Government have been able to observe. With the details of the proposals which my hon. friend submitted to the House last night, I do not propose to deal at any length, although some of them I may refer to. They will require more careful consideration than any of us can give on a moment's notice. There are, however, some general principles involved in the minister's Budget to which we may properly make reference. I notice that my hon. friend has made no change in the income tax. It was not without some difficulty that the previous Government, of which my right hon. friend the Prime Minister was a member, under the leadership of the late Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden), were induced to take up the question of the income tax. They clung to the old notion that all you had to do to raise money was to boost the tariff, and for a time they seemed to rely on that theory. However, sounder judgment prevailed in the end, and they adopted the income tax. If they had deemed it necessary even to increase the tax at the present time, I do not think any of us on this side could complain; but the tax has become a rather serious burden, nevertheless. Now, one of the virtues of the income tax is that the people know exactly what they are paying; while an alleged virtue of indirect taxation-it is not really a virtue, but rather a weakness, as a matter of fact- is that the citizen pays his money cheerfully and is not quite aware of what he is doing. And that is a fact. It is economically better to have direct taxation than indirect, and yet indirect taxation has a convenience and an advantage which often recommend it to favourable consideration. In this case the Government are raising very large sums from the income tax and we commend them for it. In the first year, or possibly two years, of the imposition of the tax there was some complaint, perhaps not without reason, of laxity in the enforcement of the law. Possibly that condition was unavoidable, as the system was a new one and the machinery was not complete. But I want to do the Government the justice to say that if there was any laxity at the beginning they are now making amends for it and are apparently putting forth great efforts to collect the income tax. I commend them for so doing, although I cannot commend the methods they are pursuing. This tax is a great burden to-day. It is a burden to people of moderate means and even to those who are in the possession of large incomes, who may not find it very easy to provide quickly large sums that are needed. I think, however, that, considering the novelty of the tax, and the indisposition generally of people to bear this direct taxation, the effort of the Government should be to apply the most convenient method of administering the law. It would be absurd for me to say that the Government have tried to find the most inconvenient method possible; that would be silly. But I think I may say that if they had been aiming to devise an inconvenient and troublesome method, they could not have succeeded in hitting upon one more difficult than that which is at present in operation. The complaint to-day with most people paying the income tax is not with the tax itself. The tax has to be paid, although it is a burden. But the penalties which my hon. friends are imposing in their efforts to get money are the cause of much vexation', and give just cause for complaint. I recognize the fact that the Minister of Finance, like any other creditor, must get his money, and he must exercise a little pressure sometimes to obtain it; but I do not think he is justified in out-shylocking Shylock by charging 60 per cent interest to the poor devil who fails to pay promptly. Yet that is what my hon. friend is doing. Shylock demanded his pound of flesh because it was so nominated in the bond. It is not nominated in the bond that my hon. friend shall charge some poor defaulter with 60 per cent interest because he happens to be a short time behind with his payment.
That is with regard to the past. With regard to the methods employed during the present year, if there is anything in the world calculated to give every Canadian a headache-to-day, now that there is no whisky to b.e obtained, it is the making up of the return which the hon. gentleman calls for. It is exasperating; it is creating a new profession, the business of making up returns. The average man cannot make it up with satisfaction to himself, and I trust that my hon. friend, who has once or twice referred to some change which he intends to make, will make the thing a little less disagreeable than it now is. Here is a description of the system which the hon. gentleman has employed. It is not my description-it will only take a minute or two to read-it is a description given by one of the great trust com-

panies of Canada, the Royal Trust Com pany, which issued a book of instructions to tell income taxpayers what they should do. I am now quoting:
"The citizen must not wait till he is asked for his tax; nor may he leave the calculation of this amount to the officials. He must calculate it himself and pay it without being asked. Along with the form showing his income for 1920 he must send in (by April 30, 1921) at leat one-fourth of the actual tax which he reckons himself liable for-the rest being payable later with six per cent, interest in three two-monthly instalments.
"If he puts the figures too low he becomes immediately liable to several penalties, even if his error is unintentional. The government officials have no power to let him off. The law decrees the exact .sum which he must be fined,
"For instance: If he understates his income by a trifling amount, up to one-tenth, he must pay income tax on the deficiency with ten per cent interest. If he understates his income by more than ten and less than twenty per cent, the fine is one-half the amount of income omitted-not merely half the tax. If the deficiency is twenty per cent, or more, the whole of the unreported income is taken. Thus, if he states his income as $4,500, when it is $5,650, he is fined $1,150, besides of course the unpaid tax.
"If he is late in sending in his return, twenty-five per cent, is added to his tax.
"If he pays less than a fourth of the tax as estimated by himself to begin with, or less than the proper amount in the case of later instalments, twenty-five per cent, of the deficiency (and in no case less than $5.00) is added to his tax. The same penalty is prescribed for not paying within thirty days any sum demanded in addition to the tax as estimated by himself.
"If he is asked for further information and is late in sending it, or if he fails to keep such adequate records and acoounts as the Finance Minister may prescribe, he may be fined $100 a day for his default; and a false statement may be punished with a $10,000 fine and six months in jail."
Now I humbly submit, Mr. Speaker, that the income tax is burden enough to impose on the people without adding all these pains and penalties which are, I do not hesitate to say, of a very ridiculous character. I do trust that before the session is over my hon. friend will make such changes as will, at all events, enable the unhappy taxpayer to feel that the thing has been made as easy as possible.
Mr. BUREAU You might add flogging.


William Stevens Fielding: Yes provided he is
under twenty-one years of age.
Now the present financial situation is such that we need to think seriously of what we are to do to meet it. I am going to read the opinion of some wise men as to what are the sound principles that should govern public bodies in meeting the difficulties of the situation. We were represented at the Brussels Conference, a meeting of very prominent economists and

financial men some months ago, by three delegates, one of whom was my hon. friend the Minister of Militia (Mr. Guthrie). The Conference adopted a number of resolutions to which I nfa . have cause to refer as I proceed. Here is one of them and the explanation given by the president:
The President: The third part of the resolution says: It is imperative that every Government should, as the first social and financial reform, take the following steps:
(a)	Restrict its ordinary re-current expenditure, including the service of its debt, to such an amount as can be covered by its ordinary revenue.
(b)	Rigidly reduce all expenditures on armaments in so far as such reduction is compatible with the preservation of national security.
(c)	Abandon all unproductive extraordinary expenditure.
(d)	Restrict even productive extraordinary expenditure to the lowest possible amount.
This resolution was carried unanimously, and approved by the Government of Canada through the Minister of Militia who, as I have said, was present. I deeply regret to say that though the Government of Canada supported that excellent proposal at Brussels they do not seem to be willing to support it at Ottawa. There does not seem to be as much zeal for sound financial principles in the climate of Ottawa as there was in the delightful climate of Brussels. Now it seems to me that if we inquire into the manner in which we are disposing of the public funds we shall have some difficulty in bringing all our appropriations within the four corners of this excellent resolution. We are asked by the ministers of the Government, from time to time, to pass what I may call "a self-denying ordinance". We are all told that we must not make unreasonable demands upon the Treasury. Each one of us, no doubt, in his community has some public work which is demanding attention-it may be a public wharf, it may be a pier, it may be a breakwater for the fishermen, it may be a public building; all these things, worthy and commendable in themselves, are pressing upon us. But when we present them to the Government we are met with the declaration that these are not urgent matters, that in these days we must have economy, and these things must wait. And it is a reasonable answer if the Government would only live up to that idea all through-then we might have no difficulty in explaining matters to our constituents. The trouble is that when temptation-say an election or something of that kind

arises, my hon. friends are not willing to be the exemplars of the excellent doctrine

which they preach; they are quite willing to yield to the temptations which arise, and to make appropriations which are not of an urgent character. Now, if we want a sample, let us take the case of the dry dock out at Esquimalt, Victoria. Victoria is a beautiful city, a lovely residential city, and a city of commerical importance too. As I think of the prairie farmer and look ahead and see the day when, as the fruit of his toil-he is not going to accumulate much just now; but when as the fruit of a life period of hard work-he acquires a competence and wants some place to rest and enjoy the evening of life pleasantly, I do not think he could do better than turn his vision out to the Pacific and sit down in the beautiful city of Victoria. It'has advantages, it has charms; but what earthly reason was there which demanded that millions of money be spent on a dry dock in the presence of these advantages? I do not think it was even necessary politically. Why, my hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Tolmie) could be elected out there on his personal merits-a good many of us would be willing to vote for him. But the Government do not seem to have had enough confidence in themselves, or in him, or in their cause; and so at a time when they were preaching economy to us they undertook to expend millions of money for this dry dock at Victoria. There is a dry dock, too, at Prince Rupert, which is not very busy; and a dry dock is under contract at Vancouver. Now, as to why, under these circumstances, it was necessary to spend millions for a new dry dock at Esquimalt, where already there was a small dry dock, I do not think any explanation can be given to the people of Canada which will be satisfactory. Each one of us when he goes back to his constituents will be asked: "Why didn't you get this public building? -that public work?" We may say: "Oh, the Government cannot do anything for us, they have not any money." But of course we shall be met with the answer: "They had millions of public money for a dry dock out in Victoria." For my part, I think that case is a very strong illustration of the fact that the Government are not willing to follow out the excellent principles that they laid down in the case of the Brussels resolution. The principles set forth in the Brussels resolution are very sound, but I am afraid they are not going to be carried out to any very great extent.
Now come, if you will, to the question of naval and military expenditures. If anybody says that in this country we have no
need of any naval or military expenditures -once in a while I hear some suggestion of the kind-I do not wish to be included among the list of people who entertain such views. A self-respecting country must have a small standing army, a nucleus that would be available when an emergency arises, and it must have, in a moderate degree, even some naval organization. But, A do humbly submit, this is not the time for these things. My hon. friend the member for Quebec South (Mr. Power), himself a gallant returned soldier, the other day reminded us of an important fact. We have 400,000 trained soldiers in Canada today-the best material for fighting that the world has ever produced. These men can be called upon if any emergency arises. Why we should anticipate any emergency at this time is not easy for anybody to conjecture. If there ever was a time when we had need of but little military expenditure it is to-day, and I believe the men who will be most ready to confirm that view will be the returned soldiers themselves. They have had all the war they want; they want a chance to get back to the arts of peace. And so I say that the military expenditure might well have been curtailed in the present year in larger measure than has been attempted by my hon. friends opposite.
Then, if you turn to the question of naval expenditure, the only good thing to be said in favour of the Government's policy in that respect is that it indicates repentance in sackcloth and ashes for the wrong they did the Laurier naval policy a few years ago. It has that merit, and one should not ignore it altogether. We have all reached the con-clusio nnow that, whether our expenditures be large or small, whatever may be done in the way of naval policy in Canada must be done on the lines laid down in 1909 and 1910 by the Laurier Government; that is, a local navy of a modest character, constructed under advice of Imperial officers and designed to co-operate in time of war with the Imperial navy. That "tin-pot navy," as some of my hon. friends opposite described the Laurier policy of that time, they have accepted to-day, and to that extent I am willing to give them credit. But the volume of money that has been spent in that direction is largely unnecessary. The time will come when we must take larger responsibilities for our share in the defence of the Empire, and the best way we can share in that defence is by making adequate provision, as far as that may be possible, for the defence of our own shores, and in that way relieve the Mother Country of the



REVISED EDITION. COMMONS

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burden which she would otherwise have to bear. In that respect it is gratifying to know that we have reached this common ground, that whatever may be done in naval affairs is to be done on lines which will be no longer the subject of conflict between political parties in this country.
The British Government offered the Government of Canada several ships, and in a moment of weakness the Government of Canada accepted the white elephant. We did not need them at that time, we do not need them to-day; but we have them, and since we have them I suppose we must provide decently for their upkeep. But I think the country will say it was an act of unwisdom on the part of the Government to accept this white elephant that the British Government were kind enough to offer. I credit the British Government with the best intentions in the matter, but I do not think we should have accepted their offer.
The great need of the world everywhere is disarmament. The efforts of one nation to prepare both in naval and military organization for another war, and then to plead that it is in favour of disarmament, do not seem to result in any progress towards the end desired. Everybody is waiting for somebody else to take the lead. It is to be hoped that the statesmen of Europe may find some basis upon which all countries can begin to engage seriously and to a greater degree than they have yet done in effecting reasonable disarmament. We have not a very extensive organization to disarm, but I think we should be careful at all times not to plunge into naval and military expenditure which is really not likely to be needed, and which, speaking generally, is not going to be of any value.
Now, when I come to the question of the tariff it is difficult to be serious in dealing with the convolutions of the Government with respect to the work of tariff revision. There has come to be a well understood rule that the tariff of Canada should be revised about once in ten years. There was a revision in 1897, followed by another revision in 1907. Our successors in office have accepted the rule. If I am not mistaken, the late Minister of Finance, Sir Thomas White, stated in one of his Budget speeches that the time for revision was long overdue. It is well understood that the ordinary process of tariff revision had to be suspended on account of the war. The revision which might have been made in 1917 could not very well be undertaken. The Goijprnment had good reasons for delay -the war was gtill on. But when the war ceased, then the demand for tariff revision

began, a demand begun among friends of the Government, as well as by hon. gentlemen on this side of the House. My hon. friend the member for Macdonald (Mr. Henders) in a moment of-shall I say?- indiscretion, told us of what had happened in caucus. He said he had insisted that there should be tariff revision. But they jollied him along somehow or other, and he comforted himself with the idea that it would be all right next year. In 1919 Sir Thomas White, in the course of his Budget speech, spoke of an inquiry that ought to be held. He said:
The result of such an inquiry should be a body of information which will enable the Government to effect a general revision of the tariff, fair to all parts of the country and effect ively promoting the national welfare of Canada This inquiry should proceed just as soon as con ditions are sufficiently stabilized to permit it My own view is it might well be commence*, about the autumn of this year.
That was in 1919. Well, Sir, the autumn came, but there was no tariff inquiry and no tariff revision. What they did was to send out a polite intimation that everybody who had anything to say on the tariff should send in a letter on the subject. I suppose that was done. At all events there was no tariff inquiry and no revision. The Government again were able to jolly along that portion of their friends who pressed for revision. When it came to 1920 my hon. friend the present Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton), was not lacking in the positive assurance that we were going to have this inquiry and this revision. We brought forth a motion calling attention to the fact that the promises of the Government in that respect had not been kept. The answer was, "Oh, all right, we will have it next year." They have been going on this way for three or four years. I quoted a couple of lines on a former occasion which I might repeat with greater force to-day. In this matter of tariff revision the course of the Government has been to:
Promise, prepare, propose, postpone
And end by letting things alone_
I want to return to the Brussels conference. I am glad that my hon. friend the Minister of Militia and Defence (Mr. Guthrie) is present. I find that they not only gave consent to the doctrine of financial management which I have read, but they also gave consent to sound tariff principles. Here is the resolution supported by the Government of Canada through my hon. friend the Minister of Militia and Defence:

The Conference recommends that within such limits and at such time as may appear possible each country should aim at the progressive restoration of that freedom of commerce-
Will my right hon. friend the Prime Minister (Mr. Meighen) note these words?
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of that freedom of commerce which prevailed before tho war, including the withdrawal of artificial restrictions on, and discriminations of price against, external trade.
Carried unanimously.
Another resolution to which the Government of Canada subscribed through their delegate to the International Financial Conference was as follows:
The International Financial Conference affirms that the improvement of the financial position largely depends on the general restoration as soon as possible of good-will between the various nations; and in particular it endorses the declaration of the Supreme Council of the 8th March last "that the States which have been created or enlarged as a result of the war should at once re-establish full and friendly cooperation and arrange for the unrestricted interchange of commodities in order that the essential unity of European economic life may not be impaired by the erection of artificial economic barriers.''
Our representative helped to carry that resolution unanimously at Brussels. Then my hon. friend the Minister of Militia and Defence came home and assisted his friend the Prime Minister in a declaration that we wanted artificial barriers and did not want to have anything approaching freedom of commerce!
My right hon. friend the Prime Minister in his interesting trip out West made frequent references to the tariff. He pictured more than once the small reforms, as he described them, which had been made by the Liberal party. He was very strong on the matter of percentages; he compared one tariff with another and was quite ready to show that there was only a fraction of difference between them. Now, my right hon. friend has perhaps not given the matter sufficient attention to know that there could be a large measure of tariff reform, without any reduction of percentage at all. If you increase your taxes on luxuries and diminish your taxes on the common things of life, the net result may be a larger average rate of taxation than you had before, but you have made a tariff revision which the mass of the people can understand and appreciate. If you turn to the Liberal policy-and I wish only to briefly refer to it-of 1897 you will find that in order to value the measure of tariff reform that was then given, you need to look at it from three viewpoints.
In the first place, there was the advantage that came to the people from the direct reduction of duties. It can be established positively, I believe, that if you take into account simply the difference between the duties that were paid during the period of the Liberal Administration and the, duties that would have been paid had the Conservative tariff remained in force, the money that went directly into the pockets of the Canadian people on that account alone was from $85,000,000 to $100,000,000. But it must be remembered-and economists, I think, will agree-that the saving you make in a case like that is not to be measured only by the amount that you did not pay into the Customs; you have to take into account also the check that was put upon the rise of prices at home, and that for every dollar saved to the people in that direct way probably two dollars were saved in the difference between the prices prevailing and those which would otherwise have been charged by the home manufacturer. The third point is this: at that time, although very great changes were made in the tariff as respects commodities consumed by the public generally, the duties were increased upon wine, cigars, tobaccos, spirits and all things that might be deemed luxuries. If, therefore, you make a distinction between the luxuries and the common things of life you will see that the reduction made to the masses of the people was even much larger than I have indicated. Now, when my hon. friends on the other side, in an effort to defend their position, represent the Liberal party as having made no material change in the tariff, they are not doing justice to us; they are not doing justice to common truth. I could, if time permitted, give a long list of reductions that were made. I can give one case which I have in mind. I remember very well, in the campaigns in which I took part, I acquired a bag containing samples of goods taken from the shelves of a wholesale house in the Maritime Provinces. To every piece there was attached a label telling exactly what the goods cost, what the price was to the consumer, and what the duty amounted to. I remember that on articles of common cloth, such cloth as would be found in the clothing of most of the people, the farmers and workingmen of Canada, the duties were so much per cent and so much a pound; there was a mixture of specific and ad valorem duties-any sort of scheme to make the people pay more without their knowing
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it-and the combined ad valorem and specific rates on these articles of clothing amounted in some cases to from 50 to 60 and 70 per cent. Well, when you cut down duties* of that character to 22, 23, 24, 25 and 30 per cent, who will say that there .was no tariff reform? Sir, there was a great tariff reform. My hon. friends opposite are. very fond indeed of making assertions which would give the impression that our tariff reform did not amount to anything. More than one minister has been in the habit of saying: We are going to stand by the policy that we have had continuously for the last forty years

thereby implying that there was no change of policy; that the policy of the Liberal party was merely a continuation of that of the Conservative party. Sir, the facts do not warrant any assertion of that kind. When hon. gentlemen say that they are going to stand by this policy which has been followed continuously for forty years, they are saying something which is at variance with the facts of our tariff history. If it be true that we have had the same policy for all these years, what did the Conservative leader mean when, at the time of the bringing down of the Liberal tariff reform policy in 1897, he spoke about the "sorrowful wail" that went up from the country? Hon. gentlemen have heard it before, but it is really interesting enough to submit to the House again- this is what the leader of the Conservative party of that day said when the whole matter was fresh in his mind and everybody understood the facts:
Now, what is the result? The result is that this tariff goes into operation, and the hon. gentleman knows that the industries of this country are already paralysed in consequence. While hon. members gloat, vindictively gloat, over the destruction of Canadian industries, I was reading the wail, the sorrowful wail, of those industries in the Montreal Gazette, where one manufacturer after another declared that their industries were ruined, that their mills must close, and that they saw staring them in the face a return to the deplorable state of things that existed when the hon. gentleman who last addressed the House'was in charge of the fiscal policy of this country. I say that a deeper wrong was never inflicted upon Canada.
Well, Sir, if we made no material change; if we continued the old national policy, why did the venerable statesman who then led the Conservative party make such a rumpus? We have all heard the story of the superstitious thief who had invaded a butcher shop and carried away a ham. When he got out on the street a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning came on, and the thief had a superstitious feeling

that the storm was a kind of penalty for his deed. So he said: "Oh Lord, I am sorry I took the ham, but isn't this a dreadful row to raise about one small piece of pork?" It is the same in this case; if there was nothing in the tariff reduction made by the Liberal party; if the changes were insignificant,-if, indeed, there was practically no change in the fiscal policy under that administration, then it seems to me that my hon. friends have been making a terrible noise for a long time with regard to the matter. However, they have now given that up and are approaching the other side of the question.	[DOT]
My right hon. friend the Prime Minister, speaking at Winnipeg, made an allusion to myself which I must be permitted to quote. He said:
Mr. Fielding has time and again given his adherence to the protective principle, and never in language more unequivocal than employed in recent years.
My right hon. friend is mistaken. I never gave any adherence to the principle of protection. I have said again and again, and I say now with increased emphasis, that you cannot make a sound fiscal policy for Canada by rigid adherence to any particular theory. I accept the philosophy of that much-quoted expression:	It is a
condition, not a theory, which confronts us. But I say that if I had to bhoose between the two principles, by all means I would start from the standpoint of free trade, because I believe it can be defended far better than the principle of protection. I say without hesitation that the public man who aims to build up a tariff in this country starting from the standpoint of protection, basing it on the principle of protection, carrying it through on that principle, will neVer produce a tariff with which the people of Canada will be satisfied. You may win a temporary victory; it was done in 1911, but the men who brought about that victory, so far as the commercial side of it is concerned, have had sad reason to regret the blunder they made. For the condition of unrest which prevails in this country, they are largely responsible, a condition which is not likely to end in the very early future. Someone has said, and the expression is often quoted, that "nothing is settled until it is settled right." You may depend upon it that a tariff built up on the protective principle, a tariff designed to protect industries merely because they are industries and without regard to the economic conditions of the country, cannot and should not sue-

ceed. If there are any people in Canada who are contemplating the establishing of new lines of business in which they feel that tariff protection is necessary, I do them a friendly service when I say: "Don't do it," because anybody who counts upon the continuance of a protective policy is bound to find that he is pursuing a delusion. If any outside capitalist purposes coming to Canada to start some industry which he believes can only be kept alive by protection, again, I advise him not to come. I say, Sir, that the policy of indiscriminate fostering of industries in that way, without regard to economic conditions, is not a sound one.
The Prime Minister has said again and again that there must be sufficient protection to protect and keep the industries we have and to bring others to us. That sounds like a nice statement, but it is much too broad to be accepted without qualification. The general statement that you must establish industries in order that you may create business and give employment involves the adoption of a dangerous doctrine. My hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Tolmie) gave us some information the other day of a very interesting character with regard to the city of Victoria-and in this case it is not the dock I am referring to. My hon. friend gave us a pretty picture of the gardens of Victoria in this early spring season. Amongst other things, he said that they have been experimenting in growing tea in Victoria. See the oportunities afforded there for development under a protective system! You can give immense employment in the growing of tea out there! Think- and that is the main point; you want to keep the people busy-think of the employment you will give to carpenters in making green houses! Think of the glass industry you will build up in British Columbia! If the question were only one of giving employment, perhaps nothing could be better, in the hands of my hon. friends opposite, than that they should start to grow tea out in Victoria. Then, of course, the question is only one of degree; they need not confine the tea-growing to Victoria; they can come further East. There is plenty of vacant land in the Rocky mountains where, with a little more expenditure, you could give more employment, more work to the carpenters, more work for the glass-makers. If the question were only one of giving employment, one might say that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Tolmie) should be given
a large subsidy to cultivate the tea-growing industry.
The true policy, however, is to cultivate chiefly those industries which are based upon the natural resources of the country. I would not have any industry which is at present established in Canada unfairly dealt with; I would not try to strike down any industry that exists to-day, even if it were not wisely established. But when we are looking to the future, for the purpose of adopting a sound policy as regards the creation of industries, let us not be carried away with this idea of creating industries in order to give employment. Let us create industries which, based upon the natural resources of the country, will give rise to healthy enterprises with a good prospect of future success. Certain conditions are required to justify the creation of an industry. What are they? First, there is abundance of raw material. Surely, we produce some things in Canada in abundance. Our protectionist friends will hardly admit that we can produce anything in competition with others. I believe myself they would want a duty on icicles to keep them out. They think that Canadian industries need to be protected by glass houses. Protection, like conscience, "makes cowards of us all." We lose faith in our country. Let us get away from that; let us find the things that we can produce, that God and nature intended us to produce; let us try to develop industries based upon those conditions, and then such industries will not need much protection.
Fuel is a great asset in the creation of an industry. You may establish an industry simply because you have an abundance of fuel. A combination of coal and iron is a great combination on which to establish an industry; that is the strong point of the industry in Cape Breton to-day. There are in Cape Breton no known large bodies of iron ore, but across by a ferry in Newfoundland they have iron ore, and Cape Breton has coal in abundance. Thus you have a combination of those twd things, if not at the same point, at any rate, close together. There you have a sound basis on which industries ought to be built up, they should not need much protection to enable them to be developed. We have abundance of water-power in Canada, and that is another condition on which industries may be established. There was a time when cheap labour had something to do with the establishment of an industry. There are sections of Canada in which industries were established chiefly because

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labour in those sections was deemed to be cheaper than elsewhere: but with the changes that have taken place under our modern conditions, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with the rapidity of communication, railways, telegraphs, telephones and all the other modern improvements that we have, with the organizations of workingmen in the different sections of the country, there is no longer cheap labour in any part of the continent of America, at least amongst the white population; rates of labour are not materially different to-day in different parts of Canada,-the labour unions look after that point,-so that cheap labour is not a live asset. There is another condition by which an industry can be established. It is possible by the ingenuity of man, by the skill of some group of men, to establish an industry. I heard an illustration of that given some years ago by a distinguished Irishman when he was making a speech in London urging the people to cultivate home industries. "Look at Dundee;" he said, "you do not grow oranges in Dundee; you do not produce sugar in Dundee; you do not produce anything in Dundee that goes into the manufacture of marmalade. But there was a Scothman up there who produced a combination called marmalade, who gathered around him all the raw material necessary for the making of marmalade and who developed a great industry in Dundee. Although Dundee did not produce the fruit nor the sugar, the skill, the enterprise and the reputation of that man built up the industry". All these are conditions upon which industries may be built up. If we build up our industries, based upon the natural resources of our country, we have just cause for believing that with reasonable enterprise and without any high protection, those industries may flourish. That is the true policy for Canada; that is the policy that I would strongly advise to-day rather than the general statement that we must have industries regardless of the economic future.
I notice that the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) made a very brief reference to the condition of the American jtariff, though I must do him the justice to say that he treated it with more gravity than some people do. There are people throughout Canada who flippantly say that they do not care what the American tariff is. There is an Irish proverb which says: "It is aisy to bear another man's toothache." Stock raisers in Western Canada and, for that matter, further East, do not

regard it as a small matter that they are likely to be shut out of the American market. That prospect is grave and serious to them. They may be comforted by the remark that the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) made in Montreal the other day, when he was giving good advice, as he thought, to the women of that city. He said in effect: "As regards the American tariff, there is this to be said: if they adopt that tariff, the consumers in the United States will have to pay the bill." Speaking broadly and generally, one may say that there is a good deal in that. It is not, however, worth while entering into a debate now as to the conditions under which the consumer pays or the shipper pays; there is something to be said on both sides. But I have not found my right hon. friend telling the consumers of Canada that they pay the duty. In general he cultivates the notion that the man who ships the goods into Canada is the man who pays the duty; but when he gets into Montreal, before the women of that city, the truth comes out of him that the consumer pays the duty. There is this to be said with regard to the American tariff. For many years our American friends did not treat us fairly in tariff matters; for one reason or another they built up high tariff barriers against us, and we felt that we had just ground for complaint that they were not treating us generously. There came a time when they saw the error of their ways, when their leading men frankly said that thiy ought to deal more generously with their great neighbour, Canada, and they made a proposal; they met us half way, and between us, we agreed to a certain thing. The present Government of Canada has opposed that; the people of Canada, through their constituted representatives, have turned that down. Therefore, we have no longer any right to complain of what the Americans do in tariff matters. They made an approach to us; we rejected it, and no matter what tariff they may impose now, we have no right to complain. They did long ago treat us unfairly, but in this case we are in the wrong. I am going to make this suggestion to the Prime Minister (Mr. Meighen). If we are going to adhere to this view, to have a quarrel with the United States again and to build up barbed wire entanglements on both sides, I want him to say to the Minister of Trade and Commerce: "Do not go down to New York again and make a whining appeal to them not to pass the Fordney Bill. That is not a dignified position for Canada to take."

In view of the large trade that we have with the United States, in view of the fact that we are one of the best customers that the United States has, I still cherish the hope that, before this matter is all through, a ground will be found upon which we can come together, notwithstanding the differences that may have arisen in the past, and that instead of building up barbed wire entanglements on both sides, some such arrangement, call it by what name you will, as that which characterised the reciprocity agreement of 1911, may be entered into.
I have made some reference to what my right hon. friend the Prime Minister has said in the West. I want, before I conclude, to make a passing reference to something my right hon. friend said in the East. Speaking at Sherbrooke, a manufacturing town, after presenting his own views on public affairs generally, he used -these words: "We have therefore a clear-cut issue: Do we want free trade in this country, or do we not?" I am sorry to have to say that I regard that as a statement which does not do credit to my right hon. friend. In the strife of political parties there is always a temptation perhaps to build up your own case by misrepresenting what your opponent says and does. It is a small political game, which small politicians easily fall into, but we have a right to expect something better from the right hon. the Prime Minister of Canada. When my right hon. friend told the people that the issue now before the country is, shall we or shall we not have free trade? -my right hon. friend must have known that he was making a statement (that lacked the essential element of truth. There is no issue of free trade in Canada to-day. The Liberal party of Canada has not proposed free trade, did not propose free trade when it was in office, does not propose free trade to-day. The Farmers' party, though they go further than we do, have not proposed free trade. Who is it then that talks of free trade? ' Only my right hon. friend and his friends. They talk of free trade. Why? Simply to conjure up a bogey with which they may scare the manufacturers of the country. I again say that the Liberals have not proposed free trade; the Farmers do not propose free trade; only my right hon. friend and his friends talk of free trade, and they use it simply as a bogey to scare the manufacturers of the country. It has not even the merit of novelty. It is a very old yarn indeed. It is the old story of 1896
over again. I really think that my right hon. friend, whose ability we all know, might have done something better than to revive that old game of 1896. In 1896, on every hustings in this country, they told the people that if the Liberals came into power there would be free trade and the industries of the country would be ruined. Everything that can be said today on these lines was said in 1896. Fortunately, the people of Canada knew better than to trust these representations, just as the people of Canada will know better to-day than to trust representations of that character when made, unworthily made, by the right hon. the leader of the Government of to-day. The Liberals won in 1896 and they came into power. Did they destroy the industries of the country? Did the prediction of the great Conservative leader, and the"sorrowful wail" about the industries of this country, come true? The fifteen years of the Liberal Government, so far as their tariff policy was concerned, were fifteen years of progress, peace, and prosperity. It was the golden era of Canada's prosperity. And just as we said then to the people that they could trust the Liberal party, if they came into power, to be fair and just while following sound principles, so we say to the people of Canada and the manufacturers of Canada to-day: Do not be misled by the statement made by my right hon. friend about free trade, because it is merely, as I said, a repetition of the old game of 1896; and as it failed in 1896, so it will fail in 1921 or 1922 whenever the election arrives.
Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, seconded by Mr. King:
That all the words after the word "that" to the end of the question, be omitted, and the following inserted instead thereof:
The House regrets that, after repeated assurances by the Government of an intention to have a revision of the Customs tariff, and after a protracted inquiry extending from ocean to ocean by a committee of cabinet ministers, the Government have made no proposals for any reduction of the tariff;
That, while recognizing that existing financial requirements of the Dominion demand the maintenance of a Customs tariff, the House is unable to concur in the declarations by the Government that the tariff should be based on the principle of protection ; the tariff is a tax, and the aim of legislation should be to make taxation as light as circumstances will permit;
That the aim of the fiscal policy of Canada should be the encouragement of industries based on the natural resources of the country, the development of which may reasonably be expected to create healthy enterprises, giving promise of enduring success;
That such changes should be made in the Customs duties as may be expected to reduce the
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cost of living, and to reduce also the cost of implements of production required for the efficient development of the natural resources of the Dominion ;
That, -while keeping this aim clearly in mind, the House recognizes that in any readjustment of the tariff that may take place, regard must he had to existing conditions of trade, and changes made in such a manner as will cause the least possible disturbance of business.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Stevens Fielding: If I would make any comment on that it is that it should have the same result as the policy of 1896 upon the industries of the country:
That the House, while recognizing that the obligations arising from the war must be met, and declaring its readiness to make all necessary provision for that purpose, regrets that the financial proposals of the Government are not made with due regard to the economy that is so urgently needed, and expresses the opinion that, before resorting to new taxation, the Gov

ernment should make a substantial reduction in the proposed expenditure.


Right Hon.   S@: Mr. Speaker, all I propose this afternoon to do is, in a very short time, to make some comments upon the observations which have been made by the hon. gentleman (Mr. Fielding) who has just preceded me. He showed the kindlier part of his nature, which we all appreciate, in sympathizing both from experiences which he himself has had and from his natural kindliness with the hon. Minister of Finance in the task set before him, who proposes to-day under the existing conditions to bring in and carry through the House of Commons a Budget, which shall deal with the methods of raising revenue, with the proper expenditures that may be undertaken, and with tariff matters. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton), will allow me to join my sympathies with those of the exMinister of Finance (Mr. Fielding), on the task which he commenced and carried through with such credit to himself, and,
I think, with such appreciation on both sides of the House, as was evident from the way in which his financial statement was received. My hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) in speaking, also took his just share, which any Opposition ought to take, of responsibility, for after all, though we may have parties, we all have a common country, and the obligations thereof must be shouldered by the House as a whole, representing the country at large; and his statement that all proper obligations of the country, -which have been incurred by reason of the war which has

taken place during the past five or six years, were common obligations and must be met in a common spirit of accord and cooperation. This is an eminently just position to take, and one with which, I think, both sides of the House will fully agree.
When my hon. friend comes to deal with the raising of the revenue he practically confines himself to one branch alone, that is, the income tax. I listened for any adverse criticisms of the income tax, either as to its principle, or as to the rate of taxation by which the revenue through income was to be raised. The hon. gentleman had no criticism either for the income tax itself, or for the rates which were levied upon a graduated scale; the only criticism he offered was as to the methods by which the tax was collected and as to the penalties which were imposed for avoidance in any way of its condition. Well, that eliminates any difference between my hon. friend and myself, between gentlemen on the other side of the House, and gentlemen on this side, as regards that particular portion of the Budget which aims at gathering revenue through the income tax. It may be said, in passing, that no person need incur the penalties of the income tax administration. All that is required is that one shall turn in his statement at the stated time, shall turn in a proper statement, and shall make his calculations in an honest manner. No man will be penalized who fulfils these three conditions. But m'y hon. friend gave it all away when he said that every law must have its penalties, and that unless you imposed penalties it would be impossible to enforce the law.
In one respect I sympathize with my hon. friend, and I think I shall have to join hands with him if, within the course of the next year or two, the Finance Minister does not devise some simpler methods to aid our dull intellects in what was, to myself, at any rate, a very great effort to figure out just exactly the return that I should put before the minister, and what amount of money I had to accompany that statement with in order to avoid any penalty. Whether or not I succeeded in the first, I am not certain up to this day. I did succeed, I think, in the second, because I sent in about three-fourths of everything that could be taxed against me as my initial payment, and I hope to avoid any penalty in regard to the remaining fourth. But if, by the exercise of any methods that may occur to him, it is possible for him to make it easier for us, after this, to make our calculations, I should advise him to do so,

and make a name for himself, softer and sweeter and more pleasing than that which now attaches to him when we set ourselves with our pencils to calculate our income tax.
My hon. friend (Mr. Fielding), then fled over to the Brussels Conference, and read to us one of the very good resolutions which were passed there. I understand the purport of the resolution which he read. In brief, it divides itself into four parts. In the first place, it urges that it would be the part of wisdom for all nations of the world to restrict current expenditure to ordinary revenue. I think that the Minister of Finance last year and this year, as did the Government which he represents, paid reasonable attention to that sound dictum, and he had an opportunity of stating to the House last night that what was necessary for last year's expenditures has been raised out of taxation and has not been placed to the debit of our national account. I think, furthermore, that the statement he has made this year shows that we are proceeding along the same lines; and with truth it may be said that in that respect we have lived up absolutely to the first part of the resolution of the Brussels Conference. The second part of the resolution advocated a reduction of armaments and munitions to what was reasonably necessary in order that a country's position should be secured in this insecure and uncertain world. Now, a great deal is said with reference to the failure of the nations to reduce armaments. Some armaments have been reduced almost to extinction by the fortunes of war. But, though war has ceased, in so far as the actual conduct of the great principal struggle is concerned, yet it is true that there is no peace in Europe, fand European peace would not have been in the past year advantaged, nor, in the present and coming year, made more secure or more certain if all the nations engaged in the Great War on the allied side had suddenly abandoned their arms, disbanded their armies, and reduced their navies to the zero point. Until European peace is established; until you know more of what is going to happen on the part of Russia; until you know more of the probable events that will occur amongst the central nations of Europe; until you know more of what is going to take place on the Mediterranean sea, and in the Far East;-until you know more about all these things, and until there is a more settled state of world conditions, than you have to-day, the cause of peace itself
would only be injured by the entire destruction of armaments either by land or by sea, or by both. It is necessary, until that process is concluded-and it will take some time in my opinion, before that is realized -that armies and navies shall be maintained.
That sentiment was very well expressed, and thoroughly canvassed at the first assembly of the League of Nations. Nine-tenths-yes I might say ten-tenths-of the powers represented there were absolutely in favour of the restriction, reduction, diminution of armaments both by land and by sea, Why should they not be? The vast burden that rests upon these peoples is the burden which has been built up because of armaments necessary in the war, and made and carried on both before and after the war. Every one of those nations, even the most prosperous of them, is at the end of its expedients in finding sufficient revenues to bear the burdens of the present day, and to make fair and reasonable provision for the improvements, social and otherwise, which are demanded in these times when legislation is applied to a thousand different objects, and which tends in a thousand different directions from what it did twenty-five or thirty years ago. So that in heart, as well as in mind, it must be the wish, the hope, the overwhelming desire, in every one of these countries that the period of the limitation, and diminution to a minimum, of armaments, both naval and land, must be held in view. But, on the other hand, it is a fact, self-patent as no. other fact in the situation .to-day, that it would be suicidal to do that absolutely at once and now. And so in the assembly of the League of Nations-with all the strong sentiment in favour of the diminution of armaments by land and by sea, and the consequent getting rid of the burdens necessary in order to support these-the reasonable ground was held and the reasonable conclusion come to that, in so far as it is possible and as quickly as possible, these pressing armaments should be reduced; and it was made a condition of every new arrival into the League of Nations that its armaments, by land or by sea, should not be increased-they had to take that as a condition of their admittance into the league. So that, I think, Canada, as far as that is concerned, has followed a reasonable course. As far as our army is concerned-if you call it that, or our militia -it is a fact that we have those who have come back from the war; but there is also the fact that my hon. friend stated-I was glad to hear that statement, I want it

emphasized, I want it kept in mind-that, so far as he was concerned, Canada in the future must take her fair share in the defence of this country and in the defence of the Empire. No fair-minded man will oppose a statement of that kind. Under present financial conditions, and until the world comes to a fair conclusion as to what it is going to do in the future about armaments in general, it is the part of Canada to proceed as carefully as possible. It is also the part of Canada to preserve her organism both by land and by water, the organism of her army and the organism of her navy. If for one, two, three, four and five years, there were to take place entire disbandment, for instance, and the spirit of the people were not to be called upon at all for any military force or any naval force, when the time came to take that reasonable position stated by my hon. friend Canada would be at a great disadvantage. It is therefore her part to carry on in the meantime, with reasonable respect to the financial situation, but to keep up her organization, and to keep up the spirit of her people as well,-which is just as important as a mechaioal organization. Have we gone beyond that? On the whole we have not. We are spending to-day on our navy two and a half million dollars. If I remember rightly, that is less than we spent before the war period came on, anyway it is not more; and there is this additional point-that the effectiveness is a great many per cent greater now than it was before the war, and we are keeping up on a less personnel what is an effective organization, seaworthy and seagoing, and doing it on less money than the organization cost before the war. Now it seems to me that it is reasonable for Canada to say "Yes, along these lines we will keep our organization. We will keep up the spirit of our people-which is necessary in every people that is going to be self-dependent, self-respecting,-and when the skies grow brighter and when financial circumstances become more favourable, then we will take our part and our share, with all the other British peoples, in defending our own country and the Empire of which our own country forms a part."
Then, a third branch of the Brussels Conference resolution was that each country should abandon extraordinary expenditures that were not remunerative-that is that were not absolutely necessary. We are doing that. The whole Budget as brought down last year and this year is 
testimony to that effect. But I should have liked to introduce my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's-who was finance Minister in the golden era of which he speaks, in an era when peace and quietude and comparative comfort in administration was the rule-to the last eight years of financial management in the Dominion of Canada as a Cabinet minister, and, if I could, to have instilled into him the groan-ings in spirit that took place, acquaint him with the burdens which rested upon our shoulders and with the obligations which were-day by day and night by night-constantly coming in increased volume upon us, which we could escape by no will or wish of our own, or effort of our own, if we were to stand to our guns and carry out the wishes and desires of the people of Canada in that long war which has taken place. During all that time what was the situation? Great burdens of administration and the difficulties of finding ways and means; utter powerlessness to keep down expenditures in war time when the demand came by telegram and letter, day and night, every hour: "More munitions, more men, more clothing; we cannot wait for you to get easy bids; we want these things now; get them no matter what it costs!" That is the spirit that dominates in war time. Great Britain could not wait to make small contracts on more reasonable bases when her soldiers were exposed to the enemy, and munitions, clothing and provisions were necessary every hour of the day. These things had to be got no matter what they cost. Any reasonable man knows that under pressure of that kind, in times of that kind, expenditures will grow in spite of efforts to keep them down, and extravagances, compared with peace times, will be absolutely the rule and not the exception.
Well, Sir, in those years our debt has increased from $300,000,000 up to $2,500,000,000. These obligations have massed themselves upon us. The man is foolish- and I do not think there are many such in this House-who would assert that the moment war stopped these obligations ended. These obligations were in the shape of promissory notes to pay, signed by the country, and they had to be met-* and they are being met now. The war was one thing, demobilization was another, and in one way it is as expensive as the war itself. The war lasted four years; demobilization has already been in progress for two years and is not yet coirn

pleted. But there is the trail of consequences of the war. Demobilization did not end when you got your able-bodied soldiers back here, nor did it end when you got your disabled and shell-shocked soldiers back here in hospitals and gave them pensions that will go on for a generation. These obligations mount higher and higher to their peak, and their peak was not reached until the armistice; they must be met and the wherewithal must be found to meet them. It is easy to talk of what you did in peace time when the' revenue was overflowing, and to vaunt yourselves more than is meet on the golden era that you happened to float through upon clouds as soft as down; but we are not in a golden era now, nor have we been for the past six years. We have been in a war era where the blood and flames of war have been the accompaniments rather than the balmy breezes of peace time, and as reasonable men we must take that into account, and we do always, except when we want to make a point against the other fellow-then we go back to the "golden era" business.
What I have said comes even with the fourth clause of the Brussels resolution-[DOT] that you should restrict even praiseworthy expenditures, what" indeed might be called in peace time necessary expenditures. We are doing that. There is one constant battle going on, and it is to try to overcome the demand for expenditures which * arise not merely from the desire of a member to do service to his constituency, but which go further back to a desire to serve the public interests. The member of Parliament presses for that expenditure because it is pressed upon him, not by his constituents merely but by the situation itself. And those expenditures mount up into a tremendous volume when they come from all parts of this Dominion. I could easily point out to this House a dozen, fifty, a hundred, ways in which millions of money could be spent to the economic advantage of the country, if we could undertake it; but it is impossible. And this Government-and the House is behind it-* is trying to keep expenditures down to what is absolutely necessary. My hon. friend picks out one sample of a dry dock which is to be built in or near the charming city of Victoria. He pictured that city in such bright colours that he almost condoned the building of any old thing you might think of in a city so beautiful.


Mr. McMASTER:: It is not in need of that dry dock.


Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: My hon. friend has a great admiration for my colleague [DOT] from Victoria (Mr. Tolmie) and I am going to turn him over to my colleague to give him his answer in reference to this dry dock. And he can tie up to that dock when the time comes.
My hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) then attacked the lack of tariff revision. He was not on very safe ground, and I am not quite sure that before he undertook that line of attack he exercised his memory as much as he might have done with profit to himself. But we are all subject to lapses of memory sometimes. I have a little document before me which I shall not read, but it is almost a complete duplicate of the statement that he has made in criticism of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton), and to put the two side by side and trot them out would be an amusing example of how to distinguish between twins. What do I find? That year after year my hon. friend when Finance Minister, or a spokesman for him if he himself was not in a position to attend to it at the time, made his excuse before the House each year from 1903 clear up to 1907

for four years my hon. friend in his time was excusing himself from bringing on a tariff which he had promised to bring on the year before. The year 1904 sees him bringing in an excuse for not doing what he promised to do in 1903; 1905 sees him sturdily making the same excuse for failure to do what he had promised to do in 1904; 1906 sees a repetition of the same excuse; and it was not until 1907 that the promise came to fruition. If my hon. friend would just reverse the names he has made an almost perfect description of what wais done during the four years of his own administration. But, after all, there was a good deal of common sense abroad at that time, and although he had to make his promises and follow theim uip by excuses for those four years, I do not think that he came uip against any very great opposition in the country or in the House; that is, the people are apt to take a reasonable view of these things, and I think they will take a reasonable view at the present time.
In my opinion the Minister of Finance gave pretty good reasons why it was not either advisable or reasonably possible to undertake a thorough and complete revision of the tariff this year. If we make a survey of the position, I think we can all easily come to that conclusion. It is safe to say that it is not only a perilous, but

it is an unwise thing, to attempt to make a revision of the tariff which brings our own country into comparison with every other country, at a time of trade confusion when no man can predict what will be the commercial and financial conditions six months hence.
I read not long ago an article written by one of the most celebrated publicists in the United States in which he stated, upon returning from Europe and having made a thorough study of the condition of the nations of the world, that he knew of no financial authority who could make a forecast of the financial and economic conditions of the world four months from this time; that it could not be done. The exchange situation, for instance, grows worse every day, and its improvement depends entirely upon the working out of a series of factors having relation to Central Europe in particular and to the world in general. No man is wise enough to forecast what that result will be. In six months' time you may have comparative peace amongst the nations of Europe, or you may have conditions still worse than those which prevail to-day. The exchange condition, then, is in a confused and indefinite state and no one can tell what it will be in the days to come-and upon the exchange conditions, much depends in the fixation of your tariff.
Then, take the condition of credits. It was thought at one time that after the war the shelves of the countries of Europe would be bare of supplies and that, therefore, export trade from other countries would find markets there. It is true that the shelves of Europe are bare of supplies, but there is alongside of that the other circumstance that the treasury, the banks, the pockets, the resources, of European countries are not in such a state that the goods which those countries require to fill their empty shelves can be paid for. Trade depends upon credit, and particularly is this true of trade at the present time with the European countries which were engaged in the war. Countries which hope to do very much export business with European nations must be ready to extend credit to them. Now, are the export countries in the position to make advances? Ask Canada if she is in a position to make further advances to European countries to enable them to buy her products. The answer from Canada would be a negative one. Ask Great Britain if she is in a position to do it-with all her burdens; with all her heavy debts; with 
all her accumulations of interest and her calls for payment to foreign countries; with all the large amounts she has lent to the Allies, upon which she has received not a single cent of interest, and upon which she is not likely to receive any interest for many years to come, to say nothing of principal. Ask France if she is able to make credit advances for exports for the goods that she may be able to manufacture. The same applies to all countries. The United States, rich as they are, forehanded as they are, are not prepared as a government to make advances. Their bankers and financial men are trying to arrange resources for the financing of trade and exports, but matjters proceed very slowly and nothing of a definite nature has yet been arrived at. So that in this condition also you have another consideration which makes it impossible to forecast the future.
In our neighbouring republic of the United States an emergency tariff Bill covering a period of six months has been agreed to and will be put through. But everybody knows that in the United States everything points to the introduction of a permanent tariff measure as soon as that can possibly be done. Whether that measure will be introduced into Congress within six months or within twelve months- and if, introduced, whether it will be passed-I do not suppose any one can definitely say. But that permanent tariff, differing from the emergency tariff of six months which is now being put through, will be a thing which will influence, a measure which will have to be taken into account by Canada when she makes her permanent revision of the tariff. It is not only unwise, therefore, but practically impossible to make any revision of the tariff which will be of permanence or of advantage until we know just what the United States proposes to do and until we have a little more knowledge of what the great trading countries of the world propose to do with reference to their tariffs. Not until then; not until we know more about the financial and economic conditions of the world than we do to-day shall we be justified in sitting down and making up a permanent tariff which will avoid the pitfalls to be guarded against and confer the benefits to be expected when tariffs are made. Therefore I do not think that those who think coolly over this question will call the Government in fault because they do not now set to work to make a permanent and general revision of the tariff. Anyway, so

far as we are concerned, we are quite willing to leave that to the common sense of the House and the common sense of the country, which is represented, I believe, by the common sense of this Parliament.
My hon. friend went on to convey to the House another resolution of the Brussels Conference which had to do with trade and commerce. Now, my hon. friend was very strong in condemning the misrepresentation which, he says, has unfortunately been made by members on this side of the policy and the results of the policy of hon. gentlemen opposite. I am afraid he rather fell into the same error himself if he meant to translate the Brussels Conference resolution as he read it into a resolution which could be cited in the case of Canada or any other country making its tariff, and, in doing so, having relation to the tariffs of, and conditions prevailing in other countries. He led us to believe-at least this is the impression which his remarks made upon me-that that resolution had to deal with the ordinary business of making tariffs, and that when it spoke of unrestricted interchange and unrestricted commerce, it meant an interchange and a commerce spch as we debated years ago when we were talking about unrestricted reciprocity, unrestricted trade. Such was not the meaning of the Brussels resolution at all. The Brussels resolution dealt with conditions in Europe. His remarks would lead one to believe that the condition which was being treated by that resolution of the Brussels conference was the ordinary interchanges, means of communications, that existed in peace time between the nations of Europe, each one of which had a tariff and most of them, a protective tariff. That is not a fair exposition of the case. In peace time, each country, each with its tariff and regulations, had methods of conveyance, transport, interchange of its commodities with the commodities of other countries which also had their tariffs, their national regulations. But as a result of war time, those regulations had been abolished, and, consequently, the communications and methods of distribution which held during peace time in Europe before the war, no longer held because some of the young nations put up an absolute barrier, and they would not allow goods from another country to come in at all; they prohibited them. Others passed regulations of one kind or another to prevent interchange of goods on any basis whatsoever. It was those mutilated and abnormal conditions of restriction that this Brussels conference was launching its resolution against, for the purpose of doing away with those and coming back to the amity of intercourse and interchange which had existed before the war. It was to that end and for that purpose that the Brussels resolution was given to the world. So my hon. friend, if he wanted to make an argument for unrestricted commerce and interchange of commodities between us and other countries on the basis of that resolution, was fighting on a basis which was not meant for that kind of interchange at all.
I do not know that it is necessary for me to make any further remarks with reference to the tariff of my hon. friends who were in power during the time that the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) was Minister of Finance, but I may be allowed to say this with reference to it. He said that we misrepresented them. If we did, in 1896, misrepresent the Liberal party, we did it because the Liberal party, during its long campaign which it carried on before it got into power, misrepresented itself. The hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) looks wise; he points his dexter finger at me-


Andrew Ross McMaster: I was not pointing
my finger at my right hon. friend.


George Green Foster: -to be cautious, but I must still stick to my text. Do I not know what took place in 1896? There are not in this House nor in this country many men who know better than I know the assertions that I had to meet. Do I not know that it was a bone-and-sinew constituent of the Liberal declarations from 1888 to 1896:	" Put us into power and
we will eliminate every vestige of protection." The subaltern in politics repeated that as his creed, believed it more or less tenaciously. The prime factor and exponent, the Liberal Prime Minister himself, never made a speech in which he did not incorporate that as the groundwork of their policy. Protection was slavery! Protection was robbery! Protection was everything that was bad!


Andrew Ross McMaster: Hear, hear.


George Green Foster: They are
adepts at politics. My hon. friend (Mr. McMaster), if he had any political existence during those years, shouted the same with his party, just the same as#he shouts with his party now. Once in a while, to appease his conscience, he will raise his voice in tones which jar against those of the occupants of the front seats; but when the important time comes, he always shouts

and votes with the rest. So, seventeen years, eighteen years of this misrepresentation of the party by itself, as to its fundamental in tariff legislation, wrought upon us upon the opposite side of politics; we believed them, and we represented them as they represented themselves. We were sometimes perturbed in heart because, here and there, as we passed through the country, some manufacturer would come to us and say: "Do you not think you are wrong? One of the satellites of this party was in my office only this morning and he said to me: 'Close your ears to the propaganda on the platform; trust us; when we come into power-that is what we are after- we will not injure you by a single hair'." When that came to our ears, for a moment, we were unbelieving; but the next morning the trumpet note sounded out: "Put us into power; we are the enemies of protection ; we will eliminate every vestige of it from this country." Then we went on representing them as they represented themselves. Whose fault is it if we were confiding and trustful, and took them at their word and refused to listen to the whisperings, in the alleys and byways, of the satelites who were trying to instill into the ears of the manufactures that they would not be injured if the Liberal party got into power? This was the darkey's platform which was made to get in on and not to stand on. So my hon. friends came into power. What about their statement that after they came into power they did not disturb the industries of this country one whit? There was no such disturbance for the reason that they did not carry out their expressed programme and their professed platform one whit. At the end of their term of office, when the golden era had trailed out to its finish, they left on the statute book of this country a tariff which was as high, if not higher, than the tariff which they found when they went in. We came into power, and to-day, at the latter part of the war era, we have on the statute book, a tariff, which, as regards the average of dutiable goods, is several per cent less than it was when my hon. friends left it; a tariff on dutiable and non-dutiable goods which is less than their tariff on both; a tariff on agricultural implements-about which they talk so much-very materially lower than the tariff which they left when they went out of office. Now my hon. friend says: Put us into power, and we will do just the same as we did before. That is exactly where we take issue with them.

Having got into power by misrepresenting yourselves, we hold that it is best not to let you into power again by any similar misrepresentation or any evasion of a plain definite declaration.
My hon. friend outlined a kind of policy that he would put into effect when he came into power. He does not know what policy he would put into effect if he comes into power in two or three years, any more than I do. He will put into effect what his party behind him will support him in putting into effect, and that is where they are in a tremendous mix-up. Here is an hon. gentleman in my eye who is a protectionist down to his heels. Here is another gentleman who is either at present a member of the Farmers' party, or is being wooed with honeyed speeches and with languishing glances to become a member of the Liberal party, who believes that if they get into power they will simply treat the good old path of "free trade as they have it in England," and come ultimately to a free trade absolutism in this country of ours. How are they going to get together? Is there any Whip powerful enough to drive that side of the House into a union which will agree upon a tariff which will be laid upon any basis that my hon. friends can make a confession at the present time? It is all in the lap of the gods; it is all in the future, and we cannot see very well what it will be.
I do not know that I have anything more to say particularly. I take a little exception to the general principle my hon. friend laid down. He says that he would not be in favour of any policy which was founded upon protection, and he seems to think that a policy is not founded on protection when it proceeds on the assumption that you apply it to a certain industry which cannot live without it in this country, and apply it for a certain number of years until it gets able to live without it; he seems to think that in that case it is not a protectionist principle. My hon. friend made 'his confession full and free last year as to what he did down in beloved Nova Scotia, in the coal district, with regard to the iron industry. He saw there an industry which was not natural to this country, but which if subsidized for a sufficient length of time, might be built up, and in being built up would build up cities and towns and the surrounding countryside. He applied it, and it was successful; and it did build up an industry, and did build up the towns and the countryside. But that is not protection, according to iny hon. friend. I think that that is

protection. Nobody is such a dolt as to say: I am in favour of protection and I will apply it to everything, natural or unnatural, reasonable or unreasonable. The Prime Minister does not say that; we ourselves do not say that. That is purely a figment of the imagination of hon. gentlemen opposite. But we do say this: that in our country looked at from its own internal situation, and from its contiguity and its interchanges with the other nations of the world, some of the industries of this country do need protection, and so far as they do need protection to keep them on an even keel, we believe that the protective principle should be applied to them. My 'hon. friend would cut out every industry not .founded on the natural resources of this country. I go into other countries, many of them

I go into Great. Britain itself-and I find that some of its most flourishing industries, some of the greatest employment-givers that are to be found in Great Britain, are in the great cotton and the great woollen manufacturing districts of that country, and they do not raise an ounce of cotton in Great Britain, and not very much wool. Does my hon. friend take the position that when he comes into power he will rout out every industry in this country-the men to whom it pays wages, and the families it thereby supports-because its raw material is not raised in this country? I think it is a most excellent thing to do to get our raw materials from wherever you can get them economically, and bring them to our own country and manufacture them into the finished product, thereby employing our own men, giving support to their families, and building up our towns and cities and the country generally. That is good business. I would be sorry to see our woollen industries cut off. I would be sorry to see cut off our cotton industries, our sugar industries and all the other industries that depend for their raw materials upon other parts of the world. It is all a question of economical advantage applied in its widest sense, and we have to take into consideration when we are making up our minds with respect to this, more than simply the duty or tax.
I am a very moderate protectionist myself. I do not believe in protecting any industry beyond what is absolutely necessary to give it standing and competing power having regard to conditions in other countries of the world with which we compete.
My hon. friend presumes to speak for
the U. F. 0., for the Progressive party. The Progressive party will be heard from itself by-and-by, and it will say what it means. But that breach between your down-East protectionist Liberal, and the Farmers' organization in the far plains of the West, seems pretty difficult to heal. I have in my eye the wise countenance of my hon. friend from Cape Breton North and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie). I would like to see him and the leader of the Progressive party deploy and conduct their debate and lead up to a conclusion where the two could join as a happy family on a tariff policy for this country.


Mr. McKENZIE:: The hon. member will live to see it.


George Green Foster: I have passed a considerable number of years in this world and, I do not say that I had hoped, but I rather had a premonition that my years were not so many in front of me as they are behind me, but if I am to fulfil the prophecy of my hon. friend from Cape Breton North and Victoria, I am quite sure that I shall live one hundred and fifty years longer.
My hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) was facetious over the tea industry; he amused the whole House, but it was such an extreme proposition upon which to found an argument, either for or against a policy, that I do not think it is necessary for me to follow that any further. Protection is not simply for the purpose of giving employment. Protection will run very wide indeed if its basic principle was that you must protect wherever you can get a band of men together, pay them wages, and keep them employed. Surely that is an extreme statement of protection. But protection, on the other hand, does have its interest in employment, and it does stand upon this basis, that the men of Canada have a right to employment in their own country so far as the economic conditions of the country make it possible, and so far as a policy of justice and of reasonableness can ensure that employment. There is a great difference between that and and the other. So far as I can see, my hon. friend would have no industries in this country which were not based upon native raw materials, native fuels, native water-power, and cheap labour, which he says now no longer exists. I should be very sorry to reduce to those limits any policy which I desired to follow.
31G4

One word more in conclusion, and that is by way of reply with reference to myself. My hon. friend said that when I got before the women's meeting in Montreal I had to be truthful. Well, that is a great compliment both to me and to the ladies. It shows that I have some quality which can be called upon, and it also shows that the ladies have an attribute that evokes the best that is in a man. Both these facts I endorse. However, what I said to the ladies in Montreal, if I may be allowed to advert to the matter, was this: That if there were in the United States of America demands that could not be supplied in that country itself, for any of the articles upon which they put a duty, my view was that those articles would probably be imported into the United States and that the United States consumer would pay the duty, or at least most of it; I thought that probably he would pay all; and that is where I thought I saw a little lifting in the cloud with reference to this emergency legislation. If, for instance, hard wheat is necessary in the United States of America for their milling operations and they have not sufficient of it in their own country and must, of necessity, have it to make their proper grades of flour, they will get it wherever they possibly can, no matter what they have to pay for it, and consequently the duty placed upon it by the United States Government in its tariff would not prevent much of that product from going into the United States. It would have a different effect according to the necessity for the product in the country which was importing it. That was the view I expressed, and I stand by it.
My hon. friend, I observe, also gave me a little dig in regard to my New York speech. He brought it up again to-day, and said he was sorry I went "whining to New York," asking them not to put a heavy tariff on Canadian products. Now, I did not whine before that audience in New York. Upon my word and honour, if my hon. friend will take my word for it, I did not whine in the least degree. In a conversation which I had, however,-a very confidential and intimate conversation with a certain audience in New York-


Andrew Ross McMaster: But published in the newspapers.


George Green Foster: -I did bring to their notice this fact, that if a country wanted to retain the trade of another country it could not do so by having all the trade on one side, and that if it wanted us to buy, it ought to be somewhat careful and

should take thought before it barred us out from getting products into that country with which to pay for the goods we bought. That was my sentiment, and I may say to my hon. friend, to relieve his anxieties, that it was very well received indeed.


Mr. MURPHY:: The hon. gentleman
made some converts. I read the speech.


George Green Foster: Yes, and my
hon. friend, I am sure, believes every word I said.


Charles Murphy: I do not need conversion.
Mr. ANDREW R. McMASTER (Brome) : It is always delightful to listen to the remarks of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster). I do not know whether there is a word in the English language that quite conveys the idea as to the nature of his speech in general, but I think there is a word in the Scottish tongue which aptly describes it: it is a delicious sort of daffing, and I must say that if the right hon. gentleman lives as long as he hopes to live in order to see the rapprochement-I, like himself, have sometimes to find a French word to express my meaning -between the hon. member for Cape Breton North and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie) and the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) or the member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) -if he reaches the mature span of 150 years, which we all trust he may, we may feel certain that his speeches will be syndicated and distributed among Life, Punch, Judge and Le Rire. I shall endeavour to pick out carefully and quietly the gems of thought which lie embedded in the setting of humour with which the hon. gentleman has surrounded his remarks.
Now, as regards the income tax, if I remember correctly, the members on this side of the House during the war pressed the Government of the day to introduce this form of taxation long before they took their courage in both hands and applied it; and therefore there is little or no credit to be taken by those gentlemen which does not in large measure belong to the members on this side of the House, or at least to the party which we represent. Let me make one suggestion in reference to the income tax, a suggestion which I submit for the consideration of the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton). It is not quite fair that the rate of income tax should be as heavy upon earned incomes as it is upon revenue resulting from investments. A heavier rate should be imposed upon revenue from investments than is imposed

upon professional earnings or upon the salaries of men and women, because in one case you are taxing a person on the proceeds of his superfluity, while, in the other, you tax him upon his own efforts. Of course, my genial friend, the Minister of Trade and Commerce quite gave away the Government's case in regard to the difficulties, which the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) spoke about, in calculating the income tax, when he uttered the pious hope that his friend and colleague the Minister of Finance would arrange these matters better and avoid all this trouble in the future. May I point out to my right hon. friend that some of us have not the three-quarters of the highest possible assessment to send, as he generously did, to the Minister of Finance? And I would remind the right hon. gentleman, with all deference, that he is just as responsible to the House and to the country, as the Minister of Finance, for the form in which the income tax is now collected.
The minister (Sir George Foster) was recently at a meeting of the League of Nations, of which body great hopes have been entertained, and he returns to speak in terms of pride of the fact that we are spending only $2,500,000 on our navy,- little, if any, more than we did before the war. But, Mr. Speaker, the war was fought with the intention that we should set our heel upon militarism and enjoy better conditions in the future, and it is cold comfort indeed to say that we should be thankful because our naval expenditure has not risen. And I did not like the prophetic vein into which the minister then passed. He says, When the sky is brighter and economic conditions more favourable, then we will spend more money on the navy. I trust that will not come true. He then spoke of the burdens of the war. He said that he wished he could introduce the member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) to a knowledge of the burdens which he and his colleagues had borne during the war. Does the Minister of Trade and Commerce think for one moment that all the anxiety and all the burdens which the people of this country suffered during the war were suffered and borne by the members of the Administration? I venture to think, when I look down at the front row of this side of the House, that there were men who had anxieties and burdens, and troubles and sorrows, as grave as any that afflicted any member of the Government. The obligations did not cease when the war was over. Indeed they did not; and 201
could there have been, Mr. Speaker, any more generous affirmation of the willingness of the Liberals of this country to sup-* port their fair share of war expense than the words of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's? I doubt if there could have been. I say this: that never did any government, in conducting a great war, find its hands so upheld by any Opposition as the Government of Canada found its hands upheld by the Liberal Opposition while the war was on. If there was any expenditure brought forward for the legitimate expenses of the war that the Liberals did not concur in, and if ever differences arose, it was because the Liberals felt from time to time that expenditures of an extravagant nature, or worse, were being incurred and we protested against them-we did our duty in that regard. When the minister tells us, Mr. Speaker, that demobilization is yet a matter for expense, I would say that is, in no small measure, due to the very extraordinarily large idea of what constitutes war expenditure, of what expense could properly be carried to demobilization, which the Government holds. For in the Public Accounts Committee, Mr. Speaker, the other day we found that the money paid to the lawyers in the Winnipeg strike for prosecuting men-among others one whose crime, was that he had quoted a verse out of the prophet Isaiah-that that expenditure, equivalent to $300 a day in some cases, was paid out of demobilization account. To that part of the "war expenditure" I object very strongly indeed; not perhaps to the Government having helped to have these men tried, but certainly to carrying the expenditure to an account in which it has no proper place. For it will not be forgotten that the war was over for more than a year, the fighting had ceased for more than a year or two years, before this expenditure was incurred. The minister says he is a very moderate protectionist. Well, one of my earliest recollections of political life is reading a speech of the Minister of Trade and Commerce in which he quoted:
That man's the true Conservative
Who lops the moulder'd branch away.
The minister shakes his head.


George Green Foster: That was a speech made by Sir John Thompson,-just as good.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I accept the correction, but my hon. friend sat next to Sir John Thompson, he was, if I mistake not,



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his Minister of Finance, and he took full responsibility, I am sure, for Sir John Thompson's statements. If I have credited the statement to the wrong man I beg my' hon. friend's pardon, but those were his sentiments at that time. But he goes on to say:-and I do not propose to deal very long with this part of his remarks-"I am a very moderate protectionist, I want to give an industry just enough to give it standing and competing power." Well, I would like to place this superstitious case before him,-I know that'with that nimbleness of mind which distinguishes him he will surely be able to follow my arguments. Let us suppose there are two factories

factory A and factory B. Factory A, is properly capitalized, a dollar was put in the treasury for every dollar of stock issued. Factory B was floated into existence in a company promotion, and every dollar of stock outstanding only represents fifty cents put in the treasury. Factory A is properly located, it went where railway communications were good, and where water communications were good. Factory B was seduced from a choice that it had made originally by a bonus, a vicious bonus, held out by some ambitious towns, and located in that town. Factory A is well run, and well managed; factory B is managed by the nephew of the principal shareholder who thinks much more of his golf score than he does of the success of the factory. Will the Minister of Trade and Commerce be able to tell me what rate of duty he would grant to both these industries in order to give them "standing and  competing power?" The Prime Minister of this country says "I am not a very high protectionist." It is wonderful, for protectionists, how they like to whittle down their protectionist beliefs-but that is just by the way.
George Green Foster: Does the hon.
gentleman want an answer?


Andrew Ross McMaster: Of course, I always
like to hear you speak.


George Green Foster: I shall be very glad to give my hon. friend an answer, he seems anxious for it. I would give them both the same protection, and I would base the protection on reasonable location, business management, and the like of that, and the man who did not manage his business efficiently should not call on the Government, surely, to give him a protection for his inefficiency.


Andrew Ross McMaster: That, of course,
would be the sensible thing to do.


George Green Foster: Well, that is
what I would do.


Andrew Ross McMaster: But let me point out
that if factory B did not find a protection, say of twenty per cent, which was quite sufficient for factory A, sufficient to enable it to carry on, you would find the local member from the riding in which factory B is found, if he is a protectionist, importuning the country's administration for an increase of the duty, you would see him making a claim for "adequate protection" or "protection just enough to keep the wheels moving" as the Prime Minister once said.
Now let me, before I pass from this part of my subject, answer another argument advanced by the Minister of Trade and Commerce. He says that the duties, as a rule, are paid by the consumer. He is quite correct in that. He says that the Americans need our hard wheat; they will import our hard wheat and pay the duty. Yes, but the price of our hard wheat will rise and the advance in the price of our-


Mr. ROBB:: That is in the United States?


Andrew Ross McMaster: In the United States of course. Let me make my point perfectly clear. If this duty goes into effect in the United States, and a substantial rate is imposed on Canadian wheat, the American mills will yet require our hard wheat- they will yet have to import it. But that will increase the price to them and it will decrease the demand. It will tend to force the growing of wheat in the northern part of Dakota, and it will tend to hurt us, because you cannot apply a duty without raising the price to the consumer, and you cannot raise the price to the consumer without diminishing the demand. As things become inexpensive the demand for them increases; as things become expensive the demand for them diminishes; and you cannot get over economic laws, which after all exist whether the world is in turmoil or not.
I shall endeavour, Mr. Speaker, to extract from the mass of figures placed before the House yesterday by the Minister of Finance a few of the more salient items. The Minister of Trade and Commerce has claimed that this is a really economical Government-that appearances are deceptive and that the Government really possesses the virtue of economy. Well, the net debt on March 31, 1920, amounted to $2,248,868,623.79. During the year the net debt went up in round figures just $100,000,000. What did that mean? Taking our population at 8,500,000, the per

capita debt on March 31, 1920, amounted to $264.56, while on March 31 last it amounted to $276.48, a difference of $11.92. That is to say, every man, woman and child in the country owed in round figures $12 more this year than he or she did the year previous. That is a fact that I should like to have burned into the consciousness of the Canadian people. I should like to have every man and woman and every child of understanding years realize that this Government has increased the national debt by $12 per head during the past year. That meant that for every day during the fiscal year the debt had increased $277,720. During the short space of one day, while my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce arose in the morning, pursued his avocations and retired to bed at night, the debt increased to that extent.
What are the other facts which I think should be brought home to the Canadian people? The total revenue for 1920 amounted to $349,746,334. The revenue for 1921 amounted to $82,500,000 morty But our expenditure amounted to $101,000,000 more than our revenue. So, although the revenue in 1921 rose by $82,500,000 over the year before, this spending aggregation was able to keep up with the increase of revenue-not only able to keep up with it, but to surpass it, so that at the end of the fiscal year we were $100,000,000 more deeply in debt than we were on March 31, 1920.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: Shame!


Andrew Ross McMaster: The hon. member for Quebec East says "Shame." And it is a shame, because it was the duty of this Government tq cut down expenses, but they have not done so.
We have relied very much in this country, as is natural, upon our customs tariff as an engine for collecting revenue. It is interesting to note that the American Republic collected last year less than five per cent of ' their federal revenue through their customs tariff. Their total federal revenue amounted to $6,695,000,000, of which they collected $323,000,000 from their customs tariff, while we collected $163,000,000 from our customs tariff during the fiscal year ending March 31, 1921. In round figures, we, with 8,500,000 people, collected half as much money through our Customs as did the United States with their 110,000,000 of population.
The Minister of Finance has told us that the estimate of revenue to be collected under the existing laws amounts to
$372,600,000, but that it will require $591,437,000 to pay the estimated expenditure. That is to say, we will require to raise in order to meet our expenditure $228,800,000 more. He proposes to raise $62,760,000 of this by new taxes or by the increase of old taxes, and the balance of $156,000,000 will have to be borrowed. I cannot see how it can be done any other way. You can call it "refunding," taking the debt due by a railway and paying it off, borrowing the money for the purpose, but at any rate we have got to find the money either directly from taxation or indirectly by borrowing.
Let me pass for a moment, Mr. Speaker, to the trade question. Our total exports and imports the minister stated increased last year over the year before by almost $100,000,000. For ease of remembrance one can say that our total debt increased from one year to $100,000,000, that our expenditure increased about $100,000,000, and that our trade increased about $100,000,000. Then I would like to draw the attention of the minister-although he is not in his seat-to the fact that his comparison between the United States and Canada is totally misleading. I noticed some members on the other side of the House applauding when the Minister of Finance stated that the per capita trade of Canada was $293 and some odd cents while that of the United States was $127.78. There is no cause for any expression of exultation, for those figures really mean very little. The United States has varieties of climates and an industrial development which make it possibly the most self-contained country in the world, and as these figures relate merely to foreign trade they, of course, bear no relation to our figures.
The Minister of Finance seemed to express grave fears because our exchange with the United States was so unfavourable. May I state, Mr. Speaker, with all courtesy, that the fears of the hon. minister are based on the fallacy of the mercantile system and on the unsound theory of a favourable or unfavourable balance of trade? I have in this House on previous occasions by a short example shown the absurdity of that line of reasoning, but as a sound lesson cannot be too often inculcated I ask the indulgence of the House if I repeat what I have said before. If a vessel leaves Montreal, loaded, let us say, with a cargo of wheat worth $100,000-(I observe that the Minister of Trade and Commerce indi-

cates that I should designate the ship as one of our Canadian Merchant M-arine, but as, for the purposes of my illustration, the ship has to be lost, out of consideration for the Minister of Marine  I will not follow my hon. friend's sotto voce suggestion.) Well, this ship leaves Montreal loaded with $100,000 worth of wheat. It goes over to Liverpool and brings back a cargo of hardware worth, let us say $150,000. In that case exports are $100,000 and imports $150,000, and according to the protectionist mind that constitues an unfavourable balance of trade of $50,000 against Canada. But if on the way out the vessel is lost, then we have exports $100,000, imports nil; favourable balance of trade for Canada, $100,000. To reason on such a theory is to deceive and mislead oneself and to deceive and to mislead-unwittingly of course-others.
The Canadian nation does not buy from the United States. Individuals in Canada buy from individuals in the United States, and they only buy in that market if they get better value for their money. If they have to buy under a condition of depreciated currency, that, of course, is a pity, but as long as they get better value for their money than they would if they bought elsewhere they should be allowed to buy there, and for the Government to endeavour to interfere will merely hurt the country, not help it. In order to encourage the Minister of Finance I would.like to tell him also that the United States will not sell to us unless they get paid for what they sell; that they will not lend to us unless the security both for capital and for interest is satisfactory to them; and that a young country is bound to have an unfavourable balance of trade, especially if it has heavily indebted itself, as Canada has. A great deal of our exports, of course, go to pay the interest on our debt; the minister is perfectly right in what he says in that regard. But you will never help a country by interfering with the way private individuals propose to carry on their private business.
Now, the minister, after establishing the necessity for new taxes, comes down with his tax proposals, and his first tax proposal is a disguised but serious increase in duties. It was said of old-fashioned medical men that they were always willing to bleed their patients. If a man fell sick, they lanced him and bled him; if he had a relapse, they bled him again. The same principle seems to be upheld by my hon. friends opposite; they think that the only cure for the ills of the body politic

is more bleeding-in other words, more taxation.
First of all, then, I wish to.say that this taxation is disguised taxation; it is a disguised raising of the tariff schedules. The minister himself has not raised the schedules, but he has devised or some person has devised for him, this somewhat ingenious, but, I venture to assert, unwholesome, method of proceeding. A great many of the currencies of Europe are in a depreciated condition. The franc, usually worth twenty cents, is only worth nine; the lira, usually worth twenty cents, is worth less than six; the German mark, worth in normal times twenty-four cents, is worth less than two cents. What the minister proposes to do is this: in calculating the duty on an import an arbitrary depreciation of 50 per cent will be fixed, if the depreciation in fact is more than 50 per cent. The depreciation under 50 per cent will not enter into the calculation; no greater depreciation than 50 per cent will be recognized. Now, let me show you how that will work out. A man comes into the custom house .with an invoice of goods from France. Let us suppose that the franc, instead of being worth twenty cents, is worth ten. As that is no more than 50 per cent the francs will be turned into dollars on that basis and the duty assessed accordingly. But another man comes in with an invoice for Italian goods. Let us say that the lira, usually worth twenty cents, is only worth five. Now, that full depreciation will not be allowed; they will only allow it down to ten; the goods will be valued for duty purposes at twice their real value, and the duty imposed upon those goods will be twice as high as the schedule provides. The manufacturer, therefore, in Canada who is manufacturing goods which are made also in Italy is receiving twice as much protection as he got before. I think it is unsound; it will tend to keep goods out of the country, and it will have other effects which I will speak of in a moment. Then, suppose a man comes in with goods, let us say, from Austria or Germany. The mark has depreciated to less than two cents instead of its normal value of twenty-four cents. But these goods must be valued for duty purposes not at two cents but at twelve cents, to the mark six times as much, and the result will be that nothing will come in. The Minister of Finance is pursuing this mistaken and unsound fiscal policy with the idea that he is going to help Canada. I tell him that

he is going to hurt Canada, and I will show him exactly how it will work out.


Mr. RINFRET:: How will it work with the United States?


Andrew Ross McMaster: It will work the other way with the United States. As a matter of fact, as United States money is at a premium, if you accept their invoices at their face value you would be reducing the duty. I understand that the minister proposes in the case of the United States, to bring about an assessment of duty on the real value of the article. I have no great objection to that. But I am dealing with the case of goods coming from a country in which the value of the currency has depreciated. First of all, Mr. Speaker, I tell the minister that so far as Canada is concerned he is hindering the economic recovery of Europe. As long as the middle kingdoms, Austria and Germany, are in the slough of economic despond there can be no real recovery in Europe. Now, does it affect continental Europe alone? No, it affects Great Britain also. Great Britain before the war exported to Germany as much merchandise as she exported to all her colonies. By helping to keep Europe in the slough of despond you tend to push the Mother Country down the same bank. You spoil our European market. You spoil our British market. If we are going to be kept out, to a certain extent at least, from the markets of the United States, we should wish to cultivate more strongly the British market. If you hurt the British market by hurting the European market, then you diminish the demand for the natural products of Canada. If you diminish the demand for the natural products of Canada, as the producers of natural products form a large part of the great consuming population of the country, you hurt the manufacturers themselves. This policy is a shortsighted, uneconomic one. It just tends to keep the world out of tune, to use the minister's own expression. It is a mistake, and in the long run, it can work only harm to the country.
At Six o'clock, the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at Eight o'clock.


Andrew Ross McMaster: When
you, Mr. Speaker, so kindly, considered it six o'clock slightly before that hour, I had
been endeavouring to develop the point that the underhand method of raising the tariff adopted by the Minister of Finance, by giving an untrue and arbitrary value to the currency of a country depreciated in comparison with our own, would in the long run react upon ourselves to our disadvantage.
I now wish to develop the point and to show how the raising of these duties will affect the consumer in this country. For a long time, publicists in this country have been talking about reducing the high cost of living. At one time there was in Canada a Board of Commerce, of brief and un' happy memory, appointed for that very purpose. That Board of Commerce failed to reduce the high cost of living. It hardly came into being before it ceased to function, and now the Government is placing upon the statute book laws which will not only retard a reduction in the cost of living, but, on the contrary, will increase the cost of living. The safety of the world, the economic and, I think I might say, the social safety, of the world, in no small degree depends upon clearing the channels of trade, and this action on the part of the Government will tend not only to maintain the barriers which are now in the channels, but to insert other snags and quicksands in addition to those which are already there.
The next fiscal proposal of the Minister of Finance is the sales tax. The sales tax has been raised. It is now li per cent on a sale within Canada, 2i per cent on goods imported into Canada and where the sale is made directly from the manufacturer to the retailer, it is 3 per cent, if the transaction takes place in Canada, and 4 per cent if the transaction takes place between a vendor outside the country and a buyer within the country. I wish, first of all, to point out to the minister that this sales tax will take considerably more out of the pockets of the people than it will bring into the Treasury of the country. The manufacturer, in the first place, who sells to the wholesaler has to put on a tax of li per cent. That li per cent will forpi part of his cost of production. He will establish his profit on it. as well as on the primei cost of his goods, and will hand it on, plus the profit, to the wholesaler. The wholesaler, when he comes to sell to the retailer, will do the same thing, so that ultimately when the tax reaches the consumer, instead of being 3 or 4 per cent, it will amount to 4, 5 or 6 per cent. There is another objection to this tax, and it is this: One of the first maxims of taxation is that

the taxes should be determined by the ability of the taxpayer; they should be ability taxes, rather than consumption taxes. Now this is a consumption tax. If I am a man with a large family I shall have to pay more to the Government on account of this tax than a man who lives next door to me with an income just as large as mine, but who happens to be blessed with fewer children.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Andrew Ross McMaster: It is a blessing to have a larger number; the other man is blessed with fewer. No one can misunderstand what I said. The fact of the matter is that you are placing this tax most heavily on precisely those people who should not be called upon to bear it.
The next impropriety in the tax is this: You make the tax substantially heavier-3 per cent-when the sale is directly from the manufacturer to the retailer. Therefore, you encourage the middleman; you encourage that distributor whom it is desired to get rid of as far as possible. We want, if possible, in a civilized society to bring the producer and the consumer as closely as possible together. Every extra pair of hands through which goods pass increases the price without advantage either to the producer or to the consumer. Very often, of course, it is an advantage to have a middleman of this sort, but here there i is an artificial stimulation given to the existence of the middleman, and I humbly submit that that is unsound economics.
Again, the Minister of Finance has taxed the sales of imported goods more heavily than sales of goods manufactured in this country. What does that mean? It just means another indirect way of raising the tariff. We have a tariff, say, of 30 per cent, and remember, that the duties as a rule, as was admitted by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, are paid by the consumer. Now why should the consumer pay, let us say, 34 per cent-30 per cent tariff and the sales tax of 4 per cent-in respect of one article which is brought in from abroad, while he will only pay to the Government if he buys the article from a manufacturer within the country, 3 per cent? It is absolutely wrong. What should have been done was to make the sales tax as far as possible a counter-vailing excise tax. Then you would have got more money into the treasury, you would have placed no greater burden upon the consumer, and you would have protected your revenue, because what will happen under this sales tax is that the Government will

lose some revenue that it otherwise would have had. Customs duties are already high, and the sales tax placed on top of the customs duties may keep the goods out of the country, and thus the Government may get no revenue in respect of such goods whatsoever. In this connection, may I point out something which I noticed in the resolution? Flour is removed from the sales tax unless it is sold in packages of less than 48 pounds. If it is sold in packages of less than 48 pounds, it has to pay the sales tax. That is extremely unfair to the flour merchants and manufacturers who sell their wares in com-s paratively small parcels. It makes a distinction which I do not think is justified in equity. Why should the flour manufacturer who puts up flour in parcels under 48 pounds have to pay a tax while other manufacturers who do not sell in such small parcels are freed from the tax? It is unfair to the small flour miller, and more than that, it is unfair to the small family. I pointed out a moment ago how a tax was unfair to the large family. I suppose the Minister of Finance wanted to be fair in his unfairnesses, and now he has developed an unfairness to the small family. It is suggested to me by the hon. member for Chateauguay-Huntingdon (Mr. Robb), who is as conversant with the flour business as any one in the House, that the working man often buys his flour in small quantities, and if he buys' his flour from a miller who puts it up in small quantities, he will have to pay this tax, while if he is rich enough to buy a barrel at a time, or over 48 pounds, he will not have to pay the tax.
There is another matter to which I would invite the attention of the House. It is the increase of duties in connection with cocoa paste, cocoa beans, and cocoa-nuts. One would almost think that the Minister of Finance in his early days in visiting some exhibition had been very unfortunate at the cocoanut shy, because he has certainly come down heavily upon cocoanuts and all cocoa products. In our climate cocoa is a very valuable food, and anything that tends to raise its price is a mistake. It is a drink easily prepared, "grateful and comforting," as the advertisement of a certain brand states, and there is no reason why, when the minister is taxing whiskey, he should also turn his attention to cocoa. He has raised the tariff on cocoa paste or "liquor" from 3i cents and 4 cents per pound, the old rate, to 4 cents, 5 cents and 5 cents. Cocoa

paste or "liquor" sweetened is also raised, and preparations of cocoa or chocolate come now at a considerably higher rate than before. The old rate was 224 per cent, 274 per cent, 274 per cent; now it is 274 per cent, 35 per cent, and 35 per cent. I do protest against this taxing of one of the necessaries of life, because, besides being a healthful drink, it is a vital liquid food, and there is no social or economic reason why it should he raised in this fashion. Then arrowroot - has been singled out by the minister for attack. This is the invalid's food, and now the duty has been raised by 50 per cent. It used to be half a cent, a cent and a cent; now it is 4 cent, 14 cents, and 14 cents. I cannot see any good reason for this increase. Cocoa beans have been raised from free, 75, and 75, to free, $1.50 and $1.50.
I may be told that this is done in order that we may give a preference to the West Indies. I am anxious to trade with the West Indies and with any other country where I can get the best value for my money, hut I do protest against these efforts, which I do not think will be successful in the long run, to direct the stream of commerce at the expense of the Canadian consumer. The minister also feels that grape fruit should now be increased in price-for the increase in duty will no doubt bring about an increase in price- and even the small lime has not escaped his attention. He has pushed up the duty on these fruits by one half.
I do not propose to take up the time of the House any longer on this matter. In closing his remarks last evening, the Minister of Finance said1:
Mr. Speaker, we In Canada have a great task before us. The world is sadly out of tune. May we help in restoring harmony? Trust and confidence are sadly lacking. Class interests are advanced with selfish insistence. Unemployment, is with us. Faith in our fellow-men is weakened. Doubt of the future is often voiced.
I give the Minister of Finance credit for sincerity in the sentiments which I have just quoted, and I free him from any imputation of wrong intent in what he said. I believe he is as innocent of any wrong intention as he is powerless to control the spending proclivities of his colleagues as well as being quite unacquainted, it seems to me, with the fundamental laws of economics. He asks: "And what is the trouble?" I will endeavour, as briefly as I can, to tell him some things in which I think we are following wrong methods and in which I believe there is room for improvement. We are following an unsound
economic system. I know that our friends on the opposite side like to raise the bogey that we propose in one fell swoop to change the economic system followed for some time in this country and by so doing bring about distress, not because our cure is unwise, but because we want to apply it too quickly. We who believe in a low tariff, Mr. Speaker, are prepared to give every reasonable opportunity to manufacturers, or any other people who think that they are beneficiaries of the present system, to adjust themselves to new conditions; but we will not permit the foundation on which we propose to build our policy to be obscured. It is our firm conviction that protection has been a snare, a delusion and a mistake. That is my belief and the belief of a great number of people in Canada. Why have the people lost faith? I think that this Government has something to do with it. This Government has ceased to be representative; it has outlived the period of its usefulness, and should have gone to the country months if not years ago. It is holding on to office after the occasion for which it was given a mandate has expired, and I think that the best proof of this statement is the disinclination amounting to a practical refusal on the part of the Government to hold by-elections in time to allow the unrepresented portions of the country to be represented in this Parliament at the present time. The Government, I believe, is doing a wrong to the people in holding on to office in general, and it is doing a wrong to the people in refusing to hold byelections at such a time as will afford constituencies unrepresented an opportunity to elect members to represent them in this House. There has also been another practice on the part of the Government which has tended to undermine public confidence in public men, and that is the attempt that has been made by members of the Cabinet and other gentlemen on the other side to seduce men from their political allegiance.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Those hon. gentlemen who laugh and say "Oh, oh," know as well as I do that what I say is absolutely true. Recently there has occurred in this House an incident which is also calculated to undermine the confidence which the public should have in public men. I propose to refer to this incident for two reasons. In the first place, I may say that I was engaged in a by-election at which the minister in question was elected. He asked the people of St. John city and county to elect

him for certain reasons. He said: "I will go to Ottawa, not as a Liberal or a Conservative, but to represent, first, the port of St. John, secondly the people of St. John, thirdly, the province of New Brunswick, and then the Dominion of Canada." On that occasion I protested against that method of political appeal and I warned the people of St. John that that was not a proper sentiment to be uttered by a public man. My words were not heeded, but I have in my hand to-night the proof that what I said was wise and true; and it would have been well if my audience had harkened to me. Again, in this House, earlier in the session, I introduced a Bill for the purpose of dissociating public men from their private interests. I proposed that men who entered the Cabinet should cease to act as directors of incorporated companies. The Government spoke and voted against that Bill. Some were kind enough to say that they approved of the ideas which I entertained but that I was entering on the field of private honour, and that private honour was best left to private honour and legislation would be unwise. Under these circumstances I beg leave of the House to bring this matter before it: On January 13, 1921, on the paper of the Department of Customs and Inland Revenue, the following letter was 'written:
French Purchasing Commission,
Care of French Embassy,
London, E.C., England.
Dear Sirs,-I am informed that your Government will have quite a few French steamers taking grain from the port of Saint John, N.B., Canada this winter. .
The firm of Nagle and Wigmore of which I am a member are very anxious to secure this business. We are the largest firm of shipbrokers in Saint John and have done a very large amount of business along these lines.
We have our own tow-boats, tend to all stevedoring and all matters in connection with the general brokerage business.
As you are no doubt aware. I am Minister of Customs and Inland Revenue in the Canadian Government and I spoke to Sir George Foster, my colleague in the Cabinet who has just returned from England being Canada's representative at the League of Nations' conference which has just been concluded at Geneva and he advised me to write to you.
We are in a position to handle your business to your satisfaction and would refer you to the Bank of Nova Scotia as to our financial ability.
We are agents for the Canada Steamships Lines Limited, the Compagnie Canadienne Transatlantique, Limited, the Fracanda Line and the Acadian Shipping Company, Limited.
I would very much appreciate your giving us your business.
Thanking you in anticipation,
I remain,
Tours very truly,
R. W. Wigmore.
Now I do not propose to animadvert at any length on the discredit of this communication or to reproach the minister for, having written it. I merely state that it shows the minister is not familiar with the conventionalities, or the proprieties, or. even the decencies of public life; but what I do want to bring before the House and the country is the attitude which the Prime Minister has assumed in connection with this matter. The Prime Minister is the master, when he desires it, of clear expression, and I have read with care in Hansard what he said when this matter was brought to his attention in the House. His clarity on that occasion was conspicuous by its absence. He surrounded his thought in a cloud of words, but no word of disapproval of this action escaped his lips:	'
It is not for me to approve or disapprove-
He said:
-of conduct particularly, unless such conduct is of a character inconsistent with the duties of the minister as a minister. ... I must say that I was not able in this case to discern conduct of any corrupt or culpable nature.
If the Prime Minister of Canada is not able to discover anything of a culpable nature in regard to a letter of this sort, then it is the duty of the Opposition to point it out to him as clearly and as emphatically as possible. I say that such action on the part of a minister of the Crown is first of all unfair, and grossly unfair, to the electors who elected him. The electors of St. John may have come to the conclusion that it is quite proper to elect a man to represent their port first, their city next, their province third, and then the Dominion of Canada; but they never would come to the conclusion that his first duty was to represent the stevedoring firm of Nagle and Wigmore. It is grossly unfair to the electors of St. John who elected him. Then I say it is lacking in dignity. I could no more imagine certain members of this Government doing such a thing than I could imagine them flying, but if they remain silent, if they do not protest, then, to a certain degree at least, they must bear a share of the responsibility.
The next point I want to make, Mr. Speaker, is that it is dangerous to the state. Some years ago there was a trade arrangement negotiated in Washington. One of the ministers of the Crown who went to Washington to negotiate that trade arrangement was then Minister of Customs the late deeply regretted Hon.

William Paterson, and it is quite possible if this Government should maintain itself in office for some time longer that the Minister of Customs and Inland Revenue may be sent to Paris to negotiate a trade agreement with France. If he was there, and if the discussion waxed somewhat warm as to whether this concession or that concession should be granted to Canada, would not the minister be in a nice position if one of the officials in the French Foreign Office, who perhaps had been attached to this Purchasing Commission in London, said:	"Well, Monsieur Wigmore
you should be a little easy with us. Do not forget we gave an extremely lucrative contract a couple of years ago to your firm of Nagle and Wigmore?" For a minister of the Crown to solicit business for his firm from a foreign government, or any department of a foreign government, or any commission of a foreign government, is unwise, in fact dangerous, to the state. It may be summed up as a prostitution of public position to promote private profit.
What may it lead to? If it is correcr, if it is proper, for the minister to solicit business from a foreign government, why should it not be proper for him to solicit business from another department, or a commission,'in his own country? There may be a difference-no doubt the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice or the member for Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) can draw the distinction-but what is the gravaman of the charge? The gravaman of the charge is that a man uses his public office to further his private business and the impropriety would be merely a question of degree. I am sorry the Prime Minister is not in his place for it is with him I wish to deal. It is with his failure to disapprove of this conduct with which I wish to deal. If the Prime Minister says that it is all right, what objection could there be to one minister asking another to promote the interests of the companies in which that first minister is engaged? I have on my desk before me a little book called "Landor's Imaginary Conversations." There you find a conversation between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. You find one between Queen Mary and Bothwell, and between Cromwell and Walter Noble. I have, along these lines, prepared two letters. They are absolutely imaginary; there is no intention in my mind to assert for a moment that it is possible for the man, who is supposed to have written this imaginary letter to have really written it-I want that distinctly understood. But I say once you throw the door open this is what we may find in the case of a man, perhaps of not as high character as those who are at present in the cabinet. This is the imaginary letter:
*	v
[The matter deleted is in the form of a letter to Hon. F. B. McCurdy, Minister of Public Works and signed, "C. C. Ballan-tyne." See ruling of Mr. Speaker, p. 3260.]
*	.
Here is another letter somewhat of the same sort. I again say that it is an imaginary letter, and I do not imply that the gentleman whose name I will read out as the fictitious author would have written such a letter. I merely place this before the House and before the country to show how far the matter may go if the Prime Minister's view is taken that such conduct as that of the Minister of Customs and Inland Revenue shall pass without any expression of disapproval.
D. B. Hanna, Esq.-


Mr. THOMAS HAY (Selkirk) :: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order. I do not know whether I am correct or not


Some hon. MEMBERS:: You are not.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order.


Thomas Hay: -but I should like to have your ruling, Sir, on this point: whether it is in order to attach a minister's name to an imaginary letter.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: It is rather difficult to get hold of an intangible thing, for the hon. member (Mr. McMaster) says the letter is purely imaginary; were it otherwise I should have been the first to rise and call him to order. I do not see that under the circumstances I can properly call the hon. member to order, because before he read the letter he clearly stated that it was purely imaginary. It is perhaps questionable whether it was in good taste for the hon. member to refer by name to another hon. member who is also a member of the Government. That is quite another matter. But so far as the strict application of the rule is concerned, I do not see that I could properly call the hon. member to order.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I am always glad, Mr. Speaker, to accept your ruling on matters of parliamentary etiquette. I am not prepared to accept your ruling on questions of good taste; I believe that I am sufficiently endowed to deal with such questions myse'"


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. member, if he questions the ruling of the Chair, knows his proper remedy under the circumstances. I did not call the hon. member to order; I merely raised the question as to whether the proceeding which he was taking was or was not in good taste. But I wish the hon. member to understand that so long as I am the incumbent of this Chair, if he desires to take exception to my ruling he must do so in the constitutional manner.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I wish to say, Mr. Speaker, that I take no objection to your ruling. I take objection to a gratuitous remark as to whether I am proceeding in good taste or not, because I do not believe that is within your province.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I believe it is within the province of the Chair, subject always to its occupant having the confidence of the House, to see that the proceedings of Parliament are conducted in a proper spirit and with due decorfim. I think the hon. member will find that that is true in all British deliberative assemblies. But I do not think the hon. member should take the attitude that he has taken in respect to a remark made by the Chair, because there was no intention whatsoever to unduly reflect upon him. It is, however, quite proper for the Chair, to direct the attention of the House to the circumstance that it was questionable whether the hon. member was proceeding in good taste or not.


Mr. BALLANTYNE:: Mr. Speaker, I
certainly take very strong exception to the hon. member for Brome-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: If the Speaker
will allow me-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I rise to a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think it is most unfair for the hon. member for Brome to read to the House an imaginary letter phrased as this letter is and then to give out as the signature to that letter my name as Minister of Marine and Fisheries.
I therefore rise to a point of order and ask that my name be stricken out of the record.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: It is upon that point
that I used the expression that it was questionable whether it was in good taste to use the name of an hon. member or minister of the Crown in respect to a purely imaginary letter, because there is the possibility in the guise of such a letter of contravening the rule which explicitly states

that an hon. member may not be called by name in the course of debate. If the hon. member for Brome had used an imaginary letter attaching to it the signature of a fictitious person, he would be absolutely in order and his conduct would he unquestionable. But I say there is very grave doubt whether the hon. member has used proper discretion in attaching to an imaginary letter the name of a minister of the Crown, calling ham by name.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Mr. Speaker, I think
in fairness to myself I should be allowed to draw the attention of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries as well as of yourself, Sir, to the fact that I very plainly stated that it was an imaginary letter, and I also went further and added that I did not imply that such a letter could be written by any member of the Government.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I have no desire to
hurt the feelings of any one, and I have every desire to bow to your ruling, Sir. We will call the imaginary writer "C. C. Jones." That is the very commonest name.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Mr.	Speaker, I
rise again to the same point of order. I wish to make it abundantly clear that I want stricken from Hansard my name which the hon. member attached to the imaginary letter he read.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Mr. Speaker-


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Mr.	Speaker, I
should like your ruling.


Andrew Ross McMaster: The ruling has been
given.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have already ruled
upon the point or order, and the hon. member has met the objection by substituting another name for that of the minister's. It is, of course, inconvenient to have stricken from the record what has already gone down, but I take it that in substituting the fictitious name the hon. member has put himself within the letter of the rule. Further than that I cannot go.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I have endeavoured
to show what the failure to disapprove of this sort of action may lead to. I have done it in such a way as to amply prove my case, because the Minister of Marine and Fisheries resents so strongly the idea of being connected with such a letter that he protests in the most emphatic terms against his name being attached to it even

when it is declared in the most unequivocal terms to be purely an imaginary letter. We have to see in this House that public confidence is restored. It is not for the Prime Minister to excuse the inexcusable, to justify the unjustifiable, and to defend the wrong. It would have been more fitting,
I submit, for the Prime Minister not to have endeavoured to palliate the conduct of his colleague but to have kindly reproved him. It is along the line of restoring confidence that we must proceed, and we can only restore confidence when the men and women of this country know that the members of this House are seeking no selfish or private interests but only the welfare of the state.


Mr. J. W. EDWARDS (Frontenac):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) said this afternoon that there was no free trade issue in this country; that the Liberal party had never advocated free trade; and he assumed to speak for the Progressive party, saying that that party had never committed itself to free trade. In view of this statement by the hon. gentleman I would like to quote to the House a plank of the Liberal platform of 1893, which says:
We denounce the principle of protection as radically unsound and unjust to the masses of the people, and we declare our conviction that any tariff changes based on that principle must fail to afford relief to the trouble under which this country labours.
That was the platform of the Liberal party in 1893, and the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's was then a prominent member of the Liberal party and had a part, I would assume, in framing that particular part of it. But in speaking on the Budget last year the hon. member said:
I think we will find that we are all prone, in framing platforms, to put things perhaps a little more strongly than is wise, and we all find that we have, when we come to the responsibility of office, to modify our views.
With a wave of his hand the hon. member sweeps away the [pledge that Was given by the party to which he belonged in 1893 and which was backed up by the right hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier in these words:
If the liberals are successful they will cut off the head of protection absolutely and trample on its body. We will tax for revenue but not one cent for protection.
What does that pledge mean? Has. it any meaning whatever? Does it convey
any thought to the people of the country? What do these words of Sir Richard Cartwright mean:
Our policy is death to protection. Our policy from first to last has been to destroy this villainous system of protection which has been grinding out the vitals of the country.
Do these words mean nothing? Were they intended to * impress the public mind or not? Sir Louis Davies said:
We are attacking this policy year after year. This is an accursed system-a system accursed of God and man.
Well, it has been cursed enough by certain men on the other side, there is no doubt about that. But the hon". member for Shelburne and Queen's, with a wave of his hand, says: The best evidence we can give the people that the Liberal party is not a free trade party, never was a free trade party, never had any thought of adopting free trade, is that notwithstanding our very definite and specific pledges along that line, made to the people of Canada and repeated from one end of the country to the other, for fifteen years we have made no attempt whatever to carry out our pledges. And he wants the people of the country, Mr. Speaker, to accept that explanation. In fact, he told us this afternoon that just as the people accepted their statements in 1896 they would accept their statments in the election whenever it should come, be it this year or next. But there is this difference, Sir: In 1896 the people had had no experience in the deliberate breaking of solemn pledges made by the leaders of a party, but in the fifteen years that these hon. gentlemen were in power they demonstrated how little dependence could be placed by the people in any promise which they made. I say, therefore, that when the hon. gentleman and his friends again face the electors of Canada they will not find the people quite as credulous, quite as ready to believe their statements and accept their pledges, as they found them in 1896.
The hon. member for Brome (Mr. Mc-Master) has at times advocated free trade in this House with a reverence which would almost make one believe that the free trade doctrine was a part of the Sermon on the Mount, but in practice the hon. gentleman has paid just as little attention to that doctrine as a heathen would pay to the doctrine of Christianity. That is the difference between the free trade theorist when he advocates his theory and the free trader when he comes down to practical politics. The hon. gentleman has frequently posed in this House as a free trade economic expert,

and on many occasions he has given us some excellent illustrations of the arbitrary use of a specialized imagination. Today, however, he has gone beyond that and has attempted to place this specialized imagination of his in book form so that it may be handed down to posterity. The hon. member made an attack upon hon. members on this side and in order to drive home his attack he professed to read what he called imaginary letters. He questioned the propriety of a minister of the Crown having anything to do with a business enterprise, advertising himself because he was a minister of the Crown as connected with a business enterprise. The hon. gentleman, I think, has forgotten some things which have taken place in this country within recent years. I would like to draw his attention to an advertisement which appears in the Canadian Law List of 1910. It is an advertisement which takes up the whole of one page; there is nothing imaginary about it; it is here in black and white. It is the advertisement of a firm described as "Murphy and Fisher, Barristers, Solicitors, Parliamentary, Departmental and Patent Office Agents; Practice Before Railway Commission," and the members of the firm are Harold Fisher and the Hon. Charles Murphy, who was at that time a member of the Liberal Government. What, may I ask, was the purpose of putting this advertisement in this book if it was not to secure business for that firm? Why should they call particular attention to the fact that they were parliamentary, departmental and patent office agents if it was not to try to get the public to deal with them, and why should they call attention to the fact that one of the members of the firm had the prestige of a position in the government of the day? Did that call forth any adverse criticism from the member from Brome? As a lawyer he would naturally look over this list and know that this advertisement was there; did it bring anything from him? Not that we have ever heard of. Then, again, I call attention to the Canadian Law List of 1911, and in that I find another firm advertising their wares-Gouin, Lemieux, Murphy and Berard, and it goes on to tell us who they were: "Sir Lomer Gouin, Premier of Quebec; Hon. R. Lemieux, C.R., M.P., Postmaster General." What was the idea of putting "Postmaster General" in there if it was not especially to call the attention of the public to their peculiar fitness or ability to deal with matters as a firm?
I might refer the House to the Canadian Almanac of 1911, which contains, amongst 
other advertisements, an advertisement containing the name of the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. Bureau), and the information that he was at that time Solicitor General.


Mr. BUREAU:: What year is that?


John Wesley Edwards: The Canadian Almanac of 1911. It occurs to me that the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) is living in a glass house when he is attempting to throw these stones; that in this connection, as in connection with everything-with which he has had anything to do with our public life, trade matters and the like, my hon friend has always had two different kinds of songs. One song he sings, for instance, when he wants to pose as a great free trader, and another song he sings, as he did before the Liberal Convention in 1919 in this city, when he wants to get a little bit of support from those manufacturers whom he is sometimes disposed to speak of very harshly on the floor of this House. We have various kinds of free traders. We have in this House a number of free traders who seem to agree as regards what they oppose, but who never seem to be able to agree on any definite, constructive policy. One finds in the free-trade doctrine something that he cannot just swallow or agree with; another finds something else, and when the question is one of playing politics, even the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark), who has posed repeatedly in this House and in this country as an out-and-out, uncompromising, free trader, finds himself playing the game of practical politics. I will quote the hon. member's words in that regard a little later on. The hon. membe. for Brome (Mr. McMaster) a couple of years ago found himself in a very much different position from that in which he finds himself to-day. On that occasion he moved an amendment, and he was not quite as much in agreement with the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) as he appears to be now. On that occasion the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's did not occupy a sea: on that side of the House. The hon. member for Brome, I remember, pictured the ship of state with Sir Thomas White as captain, and he pictured the captain of the ship as being threatened by what he called the starboard watch and the port watch. Then he added these words:
Then approaches with swift tread the quartermaster from Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), and he says: "Captain, I belong neither to the starboard watch nor to the port watch. I

believe in party government, a party of one. I tender you, captain, my independent support until I consider it is time for me and my friends to unite and make you walk the plank." I do not know whether I can congratulate or commiserate the Acting Prime Minister, the captain of the ship, for the support he gets from the eloquent and the revered quartermaster from Shelburne and Queen's.
The hon. member for Brome has become quite docile since then. He has handed over the particular portfolio that formerly belonged to him as the great resoluter of the House. He sits mildly and quietly several seats back behind the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's, who now moves the resolutions and passes the word back to the hon. member for Brome to play the soft pedal on his free-trade business for a while "until we see if we cannot fool the people as we did in 1896."
The hon. member for Brome, in his speech, rather blamed Canada for preventing Europe from getting back to normal * conditions. I do not know that those were his exact words, but I think they convey his idea fairly well. He rather
9 p.m. objected to the fact that we did not allow German goods, for instance, to come into Canada and assess them at the present exchange value of the German mark. I have heard what seem to me to be same very curious arguments from my hon. friend, but I do not think I have ever heard anything which has struck me as being quite as peculiar as that argument. If we were to follow his lead- and he says that the German mark is worth only about two cents-that would mean that German goods made by the cheap labour of Germany-German labour that is hardly worth anything-would be allowed to come into this country and be assessed at an ad valorem valuation according to the present value of the German mark. He might as well have no tax on the goods at all. He is taking a roundabout way of advocating what is practically free trade. There are in this country enough men walking the streets looking for work; we have made sacrifices enough as a country in the war that we went through, and I for one would strongly object to allowing German and Austrian made goods to come into this country to take the place of goods manufactured by our Canadians, while our Canadians walk the streets of our cities looking for work. That is the position taken by the hon. member for Brome, and I take issue with him on that point just as strongly as it is possible to do so.	'
I want to say a few words in regard to the tariff, and I desire to preface my remarks by this statement. We have reached a time-in fact, in my judgment, we have long since passed the time in this country -when we should have a permanent tariff commission to gather facts for the information of whatever Government is in power and for the members of Parliament, a tariff commission similar to the one which is in existence on the other side of the line and which, according to expressions of opinion of their statesmen, has done magnificent work for that country. The appointment of such a tariff commission would go a long way towards resoring public confidence in this or any subsequent Parliament in its dealing with tariff matters. Satisfy the public that you have the facts before you; that this House is in a position to deal with known facts, and I am convinced that you will find very few people in Canada who are free traders. I believe that the vast majority of the people' of this country are in favour of moderate protection and that they will support a government which has that for its policy, if they are convinced that the government is dealing in a scientific way with the tariff on absolutely irrefutable facts for a basis.
In connection with what has taken place in this country during the past few years, may I say that as regards the public debt in Canada, our debt in March, 1911, was $340,000,000, and in 1914 on March, 31, $333,300,000. That is to say, between 1911 and 1914 there was a reduction of the debt of $6,700,000. Then the war came on. I want to say this, and only this in regard to our debt. It is, of course, very large but I do not think one needs spend time in attempting to prove that the increase in our debt is due entirely to the war and to the needs growing out of the war. I obtained from the Finance Department last year some figures in regard to this, and I propose to place them on Hansard. The interest on the war portion of our debt, on soldiers' civil re-establishment, and pensions, up to March 31, 1920, amounted to $1,996,000,000. I think I am right in quoting from the speech of the Minister of Finance yesterday that the amount spent along these lines in the last fiscal year was $225,000,000. That would make a total up to the end of the last fiscal year of $2,221,000,000; that is the amount of money spent in connection with the war-war interest, soldiers' pensions, soldiers' civil re-establishment, and

so on. Now when we take that into consideration, I think that this country has made a splendid showing so far as its finances are concerned. I believe that in the period from 1911 to 1914, notwithstanding the fact that the people of Canada had contributed in Victory Loans about $1,000,000,000, and large amounts also in voluntary contributions, the deposits of the people in our savings banks increased by 87 per cent, which was 7 per cent more than the increase of deposits of the people of the United States for exactly the same period. Having regard to these figures, and the fact that the Government has during the years of the war not only kept up the grants to agriculture, but multiplied those grants by four, and given special grants in many other directions to assist the people generally. I think that the financial position of this country is one of which we need not be ashamed.
Now in regard to Budgets. The first ' Budget after the 1911 election was delivered in March 1912. There were no tariff changes in that Budget. In 1913 the next Budget was delivered. It reduced the duty on cement from 12i to 10 cents per hundredweight, and from 431 to 35 cents per barrel of 350 pounds; typesetting and type-casting machines bearing a duty of 20 per cent were made free; traction ditching machines, bearing a duty of 27i per cent, were made free; sugar duties in the general tariff were reduced from $1.24i to $1,071 per cwt. So, as far as that Budget is concerned, I do not think that anybody can claim that its tendency was in the direction of greater protection, but rather in the. direction of lowering the duties.
In April 1914 the next Budget was brought down. A duty was imposed in that Budget on wire rods, but an exception was made where those wire rods entered into the manufacture of fencing. The duty on bituminous coal was removed when such coal was used for making coke. The duty on binders, mowers and reapers was reduced from 171 to 121 per cent. In that Budget of 1914 I think that any person who is disposed to be fair will say that the tendency was in the direction of lowering, rather than increasing the duties.
We come to 1915. The war was on then, and the necessity for raising revenue was pressing very strongly upon the Government. The War Revenue tax of 71 per cent and 5 per cent was added. There was a general addition of these duties, but certain exceptions were made, and I wish to call attention to those exceptions because

they indicate a desire on the part of the Government to give the farmer the benefit of as low a duty as possible. The exception to the addition of the 5 and 71 per cent duties were wheat, wheat flour, tea, sugar, anthracite coal, binder twine, binders, mowers, reapers, ditching machines, and salt for fishermen. Special taxes were imposed on banks, trust companies, -loan companies, and express companies. Then there was a tax on cheques and railway tickets, and an increase in the letter postage. I would again call attention to the fact that in that Budget preference was given to the farmer.
The next Budget was brought down in February 1916. It raised the duty on apples to 90 cents a barrel; the duty on petroleum oils was increased half a cent a gallon, and The Business Profits tax was imposed.
In 1917 there were no tariff changes, but some changes were made in the Business Profits tax and the Income tax.
We come now to the Budget of 1918, when the senior member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean) was Acting Minister of Finance. There were no tariff changes to speak of in that Budget. A duty was imposed on tea and some change was made in the duties on coffee and chickory. The excise duties were increased on cigars. I wish to quote briefly from the speech of the hon. member for Halifax, then Acting Minister of Finance (Hansard, 1918, P. 1256) :
To redress the adverse rate of exchange with the United States, we must lessen our imports from that country, or the United States must buy more from us.
I quote those words because they are very much in line with the words that were used a year later in this House by the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar).
Now I want particularly to call attention to what took pace in the Budget of 1919. The Customs War Revenue Tax which had been imposed in 1915 of 5 and 7i per cent was removed entirely with regard to the British and practically repealed in regard to the general tariff. Both the 5 per cent and the 7i per cent, which had been imposed in 1915 and which I think was unanimously accepted by the House,-although I am not sure of that statement,-were repealed on food stuffs, linen, cotton and woollen clothing, boots and shoes, fur caps and fur clothing, hats, caps, bonnets, gloves, mitts, collars and cuffs, hides, skins, leather, harness and saddlery, agricultural implements, petroleum, oils, mining machinery and bituminous coal. In addition to the removal of the 5 per cent and the 7h per cent, fur-

ther reductions were made in the tariff rates as they had existed since 1907. There was a reduction on coffee of 5 cents, and on tea of 3 cents per pound; wheat, wheat flour and potatoes were included in the free list, potatoes being an addition thereto. The general tariff on agricultural implements was reduced from 27h per cent, first, by taking off the 71 per cent which had been added in 1915, and then by taking off an additional 5 per cent. That is to say, the duty was brought down to 15 per cent on cultivators, harrows, horse rakes, seed drills, manure spreaders and weeders; and there was a reduction from 271 per cent to 171 per cent on ploughs, windmills, portable engines, and traction engines for farm purposes, horse powers, threshing machines, and separators. There was a reduction from 321 per cent to 20 per cent on hay loaders, potato diggers, feed cutters, grain crushers, fanning mills, hay tedders, field rollers, farm wagons, post hole diggers, and other agricultural implements. The duty on cement was reduced from 10'to 8 cents per hundred pounds. The above changes which, as hon. members can all see mostly affected the farmers, meant a tariff reduction and a consequent loss of revenue of over $17,000,000.
Now, Sir, I have called particular attention to this because certain hon. gentlemen in this House, who sit^ over to my right and call themselves the Progressive party, showed an attitude in regard to that Budget which has always seemed to me most peculiar and inconsistent. On that occasion the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) moved an amendment to that Budget, which called for free foodstuffs and free machinery, and the adoption of the Reciprocity Pact of 1911. There was a manifest con-tradition in the terms of the amendment, inasmuch as if you adopted the Reciprocity Pact of 1911 you would raise the duties on agricultural implements higher than they were at that particular time. At the same time, however, the amendment called for free machinery. On that occasion the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar), the leader of the Progressive party, said, as recorded at page 3331 of Hansard: "This is a protectionist Budget." That was his opinion at that time. I agree that it was a moderately protective Budget. But what did the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) say in regard to the Budget on that occasion? I quote his words from page 3381 of Hansard. Referring to the statement of the hon. member for Marquette, he said:
"I cannot quite agree with my hon. friend from Marquette... I think a fairer thing would be to define it-and I think history will so define it-as a Budget tending towards free trade. I am particularly grateful for the Budget."
How did he show his gratitude? He showed it by voting against that Budget, for which he said he was particularly grateful. Again, as will be seen on the same page, he said:
The Budget has this advantage at least over the amendment: that it can be pointed to by its authors as having done something. . . we must give a great deal of credit to peopie who do things in preference to those who. . . . only profess them.
And then he manifested the sincerity of his desire to give credit to people who do things, rather than to those who only profess to do them, by voting for the amendment. He voted in support of those who only made a profession and against those who were really doing something. Again, he said, in referring to the Budget of 1919:
The reciprocity agreement is very largely embodied in the Budget proposals.
Well, the reciprocity agreement, I have always been led to suppose, was something which my hon. friend from Red Deer and those who sit around him, were particularly favourably disposed towards. Yet, notwithstanding his assertion that the reciprocity ' agreement was largely embodied in the Budget proposals, he registered his vote against the Budget. And again, he says:
The Government has also imposed fairly steep direct taxation-
Another thing which was in keeping with what the hon. gentleman and his party were advocating. ,
Here the Budget has a very great advantage over the amendment.
But for the purposes of practical politics, the hon. member for Red Deer could not and did not support the Budget, although in many respects, he pointed out its superiority to the amendment proposed. Again in the Budget debate in May, 1920, to which an amendment was moved by the member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), I find these words of the hon. member for Red Deer. On page 2671, he is reported as saying:
I should have hoped that the amendment would have contained more milk and less water under those circumstances, and would have been less a Shilly-shally, temporizing and opportunist piece of print.
Now, that is hitting pretty hard in one sentence; I do not know what more the hon. member could have crowded into a

single sentence'in the way of condemnation of the amendment. He describes it as nothing but milk and water, and a shillyshally temporising opportunist piece of print. That was the language which he used to characterize the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's on that occasion. Nevertheless, he proceeded to record his vote in favour of the said shilly-shally temporising milk and water amendment.
I should like to call the attention of hon. members and the attention of the people of the country, especially the farmers, to the fact that when the Government made the proposition in June, 1919, to lower the duties on farm implements, making very substantial reductions all along the line, the hon. gentleman from Red Deer, as well as the member for Marquette, and those who sit around him, and who have frequently stated in this House and to the country that all duties should1 be removed from farm implements, recorded their votes against that budget which was making more sweeping reductions on farm implements than had ever been made in the history of this country, from Confederation down to the present time, by any former Government. Their attitude was one of hostility and absolute inconsistency. Party politics is what they were playing just as they were playing party politics this session in asking this House to accept the reciprocity pact which, if accepted would raise the duty on farm implements, and which, in another breath and in their platform, they say should be free. Sir, I want to call your attention to this: The tariff under the Laurier Government on dutiable goods averaged 281 per cent: the tariff now on dutiable goods averages 23 per cent. The tariff prior to 1911 on all imports, dutiable and free, amounted to 16.5 per cent; the tariff now on all imports, dutiable and free, averages less than 15 per cent. The tariff on farm implements prior to 1911 averaged 20.18 per cent; the tariff on farm implements under the reciprocity pact averaged 17.33 per cent; and the tariff on farm implements to-day, averages 14.64 per cent.
But, Sir, while I call your attention to the fact that the tariff on farm implements is lower to-day than ever before in the history of this country, may I also call your attention to the fact that the leader of the Progressive party, the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar), is also president of the Grain Growers' Grain Company.

While objecting to this duty of 12i per cent on binders, mowers, and reapers as being extortionate and as robbing the farmers, the company of which he is president, according to the sworn evidence of Mr. Rice Jones, their $13,000 manager, which evidence I have under my hand, collected in profits out of the pockets of the farmers 21.06 per cent on farm implements. Oh, consistency thou art a jewel! Here we have the president of the Grain Growers' Grain Company, the hon. member for Marquette, the leader of the Progressive party-and who in his own estimation and according to his own confession and the confession of his. followers is here especially to champion the farmers-objecting to a duty of 12i per cent on a mower, of 12i per cent on a binder or a reaper, as robbing the farmer, and at the same time taking out of the pockets of the farmers over 21 per cent profit for his own company. These gentlemen may be able to get away with that sort of thing out west, but I want to assure them that so far as Eastern Canada is concerned-and I am perfectly certain I can say so far as the province of Ontario is concerned-he cannot pull the wool over the eyes of the farmers. They may be able to justify themselves in finding fault with the Government for imposing a duty which would mean -say, $31 on a binder, while at the same time they take out of the pocket of the farmer over $52 and put it in their own treasury in the way of profits for themselves; they may be able to justify themselves out west by objecting to the Government taking an average of $14.64 in the way of a tariff on farm implements while they at the same time take $21.06 profits for themselves on farm implements. They get over that very conveniently, or think they do, by telling the farmers in the West "Oh, you are partners in this concern and we are giving you a part of the profits- you will get that in the shape of dividends." Well, there is some of it that I believe they do not get in the shape of dividends. In one year their profits on implements, according to the sworn statement of Mr. Rice Jones, amounted to $272,215. Yet they believe in free implements or say they do. In one year their profits on lumber- another thing that they want free of duty -were $68,383. Then we have the statement from the hon. member for Marquette-
Mr. REID (Mackenzie); Will the hon. member give us the number of thousand feet of lumber that profit was made on?


John Wesley Edwards: I do not know whether I can give it or not. It may be in the evidence of Mr. Rice Jones but I do not think that matters at all. My hon. friend and his, leader have stood up in this House time and again and spoken of the aggregate profits made by the Monarch Knitting Company, the Dominion Textiles, and so on, and they do not divide those profits by anything; but when it comes to themselves, when their own foot is pinched, they say "Oh you divide the profit that was made by the number of bushels of grain, or by the number of feet of lumber we handled"; they do not for one moment, allow any other company in the Dominion to do the same sort of thing. The hon. member for Marquette, in answer to the member for Annapolis (Mr. Davidson), said he thought the duty on apples should be removed, and that, apples should be free. But he and his company could soak the farmer to the extent of some fourteen or fifteen thousand dollars profits in one year in handling a few barrels of apples, and they could shove that into their treasury. In two years, 1916 and 1917, their profits amounted to $1,699,689, according to the sworn evidence of Mr. Rice Jones, and those were the two years when the war was on-war years, war profits, war profiteers! We have heard the word "profiteers" quite frequently from hon. gentlemen opposite. Now I want to show, Sir, that if hon. gentlemen opposite are justified i nreferring to any company in this country which makes a profit of 38 or 40 per cent as war profiteers, the company of which the hon. member for Marquette is president comes under that censure because according to Rice Jones' sworn evidence it made in one year a profit of 62.2 per cent, and in another year a profit of 44.9 per cent; and in the case of its New York subsidiary company-according again to the statement of Rice Jones, the $13,000 manager, corroborated on the floor of this House by the $15,000 president, the member for Marquette-on $100,000 invested in the New York Export Company it made in one year a profit of $530,000 or 530 per cent.


Mr. REID (Mackenzie) :: Hear, hear.


John Wesley Edwards: Of course, I understand my hon. friend from Mackenzie is interested in that company and it gives him joy to think of the amount of money it has been able to make. Where did the hon. gentleman and his friends get this money? Every dollar that the Grain
Growers Grain Company has made in the way of profits has come out of the farmer in one way or another. It has come in the way of profits on grain that they bought from the farmer, or it has come in the way of profits on goods of one kind oi another that they sold back to the farmer, and the hon. gentleman says "hear, hear", Certainly, that pleases him. It is not going to please the farmers of the West as soon as they understand-and they will understand before very long-just how far these hon. gent'emen go. It is ail right enough for a certain hon. gentleman drawing $15,000 salary, others drawing $13,000, others drawing $11,000, and others looking forward to drawing that much or more, to say "Hear, hear." This is the sort of thing that appeals to them. Mr. Speaker, I want to say right here that the Dominion Textile Company, the Canners Company, and some of these other companies which have been referred to by hon. gentlemen opposite, are not living up to their opportunities if they do not raise the salary bid and get the hon. member for Marquette to be president of one of these companies, the hon. member for Mackenzie to be manager and the hon. member for Red Deer to be secretary. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I venture to say the moment it is mentioned in the press of this country that the hon. member for Marquette has become the president of any one of these companies its stock will go up sky high.


Mr. LALOR:: They are money makers all right.


John Wesley Edwards: A man who exhibits to the degree that the hon. member for Marquette does the facility for feasting at the farmer's table and filching his spoons is a man who ought to make any company rich if he only had the management of it. Where did they get some of this money? In five years, according to the sworn testimony of Rice Jones, they took 367,000 bushels of grain out of the farmers in overages. They did that to protect themselves from a shortage of 3,800 bushels! That is what you might call playing "safety first." That was worth,, according to the same authority, $418,000. The overage did not belong to the company, it did not belong to the president of the company or to those who were fortunate enough to have a block of stock in it, but it belonged to the farmers of Western Canada, and they took that money out of the pockets of those farmers and put it in their own treasury. Then they had an-



[Stage Direction]
other chance to make money on the side in regard to screenings. Taking the six years, including the last years of the war, the average price of screenings was $8.84, but in 1918, when the hon. member for Marquette, the president of the Grain Growers' Grain Company, was Minister of Agriculture, he bought screenings from those various companies, and the hon. member for Maple Creek (Mr. Maharg) knows very well that the president of the Grain Growers' Grain Company got quite a lot from him at $35 a ton.
Mr. MAHARG:: What year was that?


John Wesley Edwards: 1918, I think.


John Archibald Maharg: They did not get any screenings from the company that I represent.


John Wesley Edwards: Yes, they got 1,330 tons and paid $46,560 for them. That is once where the president of the Grain Growers' Comany put one over the Minister of Agriculture. I might also call attention to how anxious this special pleader for the farmers was to assist them. He commandeered the butter which was being made-not which had been made-at 46i cents a pound at the very time when there were over 27,000,000 pounds of butter in cold storage in various parts of the country; and yet he posed as the great friend of the farmers.
Now, for political purposes, there has been so much misrepresentation on the other side of the House as to the attitude and policy of the right hon. Prime Minister on the tariff and he has been so frequently portrayed as a high protectionist, that I want to place on Hansard the words which the right hon. gentleman delivered in this House on May 25 last year. At page 2708 of Hansard for 1920 it will be found that in referring to the tariff he said:
This is the tariff, and not higher, but lower than that adopted by hon. gentlemen opposite when they were in office under circumstances of far less urgent need. It is admitted to be a tariff which is lower than that which hon. gentlemen opposite unanimously supported all through thqse fifteen years. It is a tariff not designed to benefit the rich in this country; it is designed, so far as our own information goes- and it cannot be complete without investigation -only to give such measure of assistance as to retain within this country its industrial strength, and which does not alienate from this country a measure of the industrial strength that we have. We never can have a high tariff in Canada. We connat have a high tariff in Canada for the most obvious reasons. In the first place, a high tariff is unsound in principle in that it tends to eliminate one of the factors of com-

petition, namely, foreign goods. Foreign goods should be allowed to enter into competition under fair conditions in this or in any other country. But the conditions under free trade or without protection are sucn that the foreign competitor has every advantage.
The principle enunciated in those remarks has been endorsed at various times and in almost similar words by the late Sir John A. Macdonald, the late Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the hon. member for King's, N.S. (Sir Robert Borden), the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) and, I may say, by all other prominent public men in this country who lay any claim to statemanship. As against the opinions of these men we have a few free trade theorists who denounce protection as a vice. That is done repeatedly by the hon. member for Red Deer, by the hon. member for Marquette, by the hon. member for Brome and by others when they want to bolster up their free trade doctrines.


Mr. CLARK (Red Deer) :: What does the hon. gentleman say I have been doing?


John Wesley Edwards: I will tell the hon.
gentleman what he has been doing, and I do not think that it will sit very well on his stomach. These hon. gentlemen say, "If protection is a good thing, why not go the limit and make your wall so high as to exclude all goods?"


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


John Wesley Edwards: Hear, hear. Then
may I retort: If free trade is such a good thing, why not go to the limit and sweep away every vestige of protection at once? "Oh no," they say, "protection is a vicious thing, but for practical political purposes it is preferable to have a measure of political vice rather than complete political virtue." That is the attitude of hon. gentlemen just across the way.
Now, my hon. friend from Red Deer wants to know some of the things he has been doing, and I am very glad indeed, Mr. Speaker, to accede to his request, with the hope that the reminder may have a salutary effect upon him. I think one of the first speeches made by the hon. member for Red Deer in this House was in 1909. On that occasion he said that he had been in Canada, I think, only some six or seven years and that he was tilling one thousand acres of land. After six or seven years residence in Canada, Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman was the owner of one thousand acres of land and the honoured representative of the people of a part of this country. May I say, Sir, that in my estimation that was no small achievement and was infinitely

to the credit of the hon. gentleman. Not only so, but it was a tribute to the fiscal policy of this country under which it was possible for him to attain such marked success. Why, if the hon. member could accomplish all that under the accursed system of protection, to what lengths would he have gone had he remained in Great Britain? Is it too much to suppose that had he remained there under the placid influence of free trade he would have owned nearly all the little island and would at least have been Prime Minister of the United Kingdom? But he came out here; it was a loss to the Mother Country, but it was our gain. I hope the hon. gentleman will stay in this House for many years, but I sincerely hope he will change his views before very long and come round to sanity on political questions.
Now, the hon. member for Red Deer has not always been quite so strong for free trade as he apparently is now or has been for the last few years. He was first elected in 1908 and in the session of 1909, discussing the Budget, he said-you will find these words on page 4703 of Hansard:
Whereas under what I still claim is a revenue tariff you have a series of surpluses under the able administration of the minister.
The hon. gentleman condemns as an accursed protective tariff a tariff which is very much lower than the one which he called at that time a revenue tariff, and which apparently met with his approval. Again in 1910 the hon. gentleman, discussing the Budget, used these words:
The statement of the Finance Minister shows that we are steadily building up a great people in a great land with a great destiny and a great future, not by booms, not by fits and starts, but by slow, steady, sure and certain progress.
Well, now, I am not inclined to quarrel with a fiscal policy which enables us to do that sort of thing, and draws a tribute of that kind from so pronounced a free trader as the hon. member for Red Deer.


Michael Clark: Slow and
steady.


John Wesley Edwards: Slow and steady, and apparently it appeared to the hon. gentleman as being a very fine thing. Now a tariff for revenue is a very elastic term. It suited the hon. gentleman in 1909 and 1910; he thought it was a very fine thing for this country.
I would like to call attention to another matter along tariff lines. The hon. gentleman referred to the tariff of 1910 as a revenue tariff. He will not contradict me
202i
in the statement, that the tariff of today is a very much lower tariff than the one which was in force in 1909-10. The hon. gentleman says that during the fifteen years that the Liberals were in power they did not touch the tariff, or did not touch it in any way worthy of the name. He said that even in the reciprocity agreement the tariff was not proposed to be touched in any way worthy of the name. He said that the Liberal party went to sleep between 1897 and 1907 so far as the tariff was concerned and that hon. gentlemen supporting that party showed a wonderful patience in all those years while their friends were in power. Well, the hon. gentleman himself has exhibited that virtue about as well as any person who sat in this House during those years, for I do not find him on record as moving any resolutions at that time along the lines of his free trade doctrine. But I want to bring his attention to something else which is of more recent date. The hon. gentleman, according to the press, spoke at Timiskaming on March 13, last. I may say that in my estimation he used some of those forked methods which he objects to when used by the leader of the Opposition, but which he and his friends refer to as political strategy when used by them- [DOT] selves. Speaking at Timiskaming he said, as reported:
They say .there is no doubt about Clark. He is a free trader-the other fellows don't go so far, and we do not know how far they do go. Well, for purposes of practical politics there is not one Whit of difference between myself and Mr. Crerar and Mr. McDonald, and the other members of the party on the trade question.
The " Mr. McDonald " is the hon. member for Timiskaming, who was affectionately referred to on that occasion, I believe, as " the sweet little cherub." Well there is something wrong with that cherub and with the other cherubs who sit in that particular party-there is something wrong with their wings. They have never seemed to be able to try their cherubs' wings in flying into the ethereal regions of free trade. " For the purposes of practical politics," he says, there is no difference between them. I do not know whether the hon. member for Red Deer is so weighted down with Cobden medals that he is afraid to try his free trade wings; he has never tried them in the form of a resolution to test the feeling of this House, that is certain. On that occasion the hon. gentleman referred to the Prime Minister in these words:

Mr. Moig'hen has been saying that there are only two principles possible before you, wanting to convey the idea that if the Progressives get into power in this country they are going to overturn everything all of a sudden. Well, let me disabuse your minds of anything of the sort. There is no progress that is worth the name that is not made a step at a time. I say these words to 3-llay the fears of any here who may feel the Progressive party is going to go too fast, and I say it also to modify the hopes of any who may think that if the Progressive party gets into power you will have the millennium next day. You won't. It is not coming that way.


Michael Clark: Very wise
language.


John Wesley Edwards: Very wise language it may be, but it seems to me to be very inconsistent with the vociferous expressions of free trade opinion which my hon. friend voices on occasions. He denounces protection as a curse, but he says it would be wise to retain the curse for a while-to get rid of it gradually. One would naturally suppose that if protection was a curse and free trade a benefit, the sooner you got rid of the curse and acquired the benefit, the better it would be for the country. But my hon. friend says that is not the way to do it. "Protection is a curse, but don't you fellows think we are going to do away with it all at once; we will hang on to it for a little while." He says that protection makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, but he says also that if the Progressive party get into power they will continue for a time to make the rich richer and the poor poorer; they will not do away with a system which they condemn as bringing about that result. He says: Protection is a violation of sound economics, of sane reasoning and of elemental, common sense. But for practical political purposes, both he and his party are perfectly willing to follow a line of policy which is not sound economics, which is not sane and which is not good common sense. To argue that the proper thing to do is to eliminate a vicious thing by degrees, is to admit that a measure of political vice is preferable to complete virtue. I am reminded of the lines:
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Vet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
I am afraid the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) is actually degenerating; he is becoming rather familiar with this vice; he wants to coddle it along now for practical political purposes. He is making his appeal now to the manufacturers of the country. I venture to guess that in certain parts of the West he would not use that kind of language at all; but in

certain parts of Ontario and in certain parts of Quebec and the Maritime Provinces, it is good practical politics to play the other side of the game, to play, in fact, a double game. Yet the hon. member for Red Deer said on that occasion:
I do not know exactly where the official Opposition stands in regard to this question of trade, but we of the progressive party are not in any douibt as to where we stand.
For practical political purposes, I can tell them just where they stand. They stand exactly where the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) stands- all things to all men, ready to play the game of free trade when it suits their constituencies to do so, and ready to pander to the manufacturers where they think they can get a few votes by that means. That is where they stand; yet they pose as great political purists, and you would think angels' wings were almost sprouting on their shoulders. Not one of them has yet dared to try out those wings in testing this House as regards the theories which they profess. They seem to be afraid of one another. They denounce protection in that degree; but they seem to be afraid to put the matter to the test for fear that some persons will not see the thing just as they do. So they carry on this policy of deception.
The hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) undertook this afternoon to speak for his party and also to speak for the party across the way. He said that the Liberal party did not favour free trade and he said that the Progressive party did not favour free trade. I do not know whether he has been having any little private conference with the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) before making that statement or not. He went on to move an amendment Which certainly endorses the principle of protection. The principle of protection has been denounced in the strongest terms by the hon. member for Marquette and the hon. gentleman who sits to his left, the hon. member for Red Deer. We will see what these hon. gentlemen will do when it comes to a question of voting for the amendment or for the Budget proposed by the Government. I have an idea of what they will do. I think both of those hon. gentlemen will, as they have done time and time again in this House, talk on both sides of the question until no person can tell exactly what they are going to do except by judging them by past experience, and then

they will wind up by voting for anything which is moved against this Government. They think that they can pull the wool over the eyes of the people in this country and that the people will swallow that sort of thing. I can tell my hon. friends that the people will not do that. The hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's has made a statement regarding the Liberal party not favouring free trade, and he has also made the same statement in regard to the party led by the hon. member for Marquete. I do not know how you are going to judge a party except by the platform issued by that party and by the atterances of the acknowledged leader or leaders of that party. I want to place on Hansard some statements made by the hon. member for Marquette, who is leader, for the time at least, of the so-called Progressive party. Last session, in this House, the hon. member for North Perth (Mr. Morphy) put this question to the hon. member for Marquette:
Mr. Morphy: The hon. gentleman has been quoting authorities in favour of free trade, but is he himself In favour of free trade for Canada?
Mr. Crerar: I will say this, that the fiscal policy for Great Britain, in my judgment, would be a very admirable one for Canada.
We all know what the fiscal, policy of Great Britain is. It is a free trade policy, and it seems to me that the hon. member for Marquette, the leader of the Progressive party, in making that statement, announced himself as a free trader. I should like to quote one other observation which he made on the same occasion and this is to be found in Hansard of May 31, 1920, page 2908:
I have never been able to see the sense of creating-, for instance, a cotton industry in Can-a^a

which I shall refer to in a moment-and which is entirely an artificial industry in this country.
I quote that because it is in line with statements made by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's this
10 p.m. afternoon. If those words mean anything at all, they mean that the hon. member for Marquette, if he had his way, wuold wipe out every cotton industry in the Dominion of Canada. If those words do not mean that, 1 do not understand the English language. I do not know any other construction that you can put on his words.
Free trade, as they have it in England, will be, the hon. member for Marquette says, a fine thing for this country. I represent a rural constituency, and I want to discuss the question of free trade for a few minutes as to how that policy as advocated
by the hon. member for Marquette would affect the farmers of this country if it were put into effect. I want to call the attention of the House to a statement made by Cob-den in 1844. I trust the hon. member for Red Deer will forgive me if I undertake to quote some of those illustrious gentlemen whom he has quoted so frequently in this House. I do not suppose he wants a monopoly of the quoting of their names and utterances. At all events I will run the risk of quoting them.


Michael Clark: I forgive the hon. gentleman freely.


John Wesley Edwards: My hon. friend's generosity is simply marvellous. I thank him very much. In 1844, Cobden said:
Free trade in corn is the very way to increase the .production at home and stimulate the production of the poorest soils by compelling the application of more capital and labour to them. We do not contemplate deriving one bushel less corn from the soil of this country.
Gobden proved to be a mighty poor prophet. Thompson was more honest than his companion, when, in his "Free Trade Catechism" he wrote:
It may be information to the home agriculturists to state that "there would be no physical impossibility in living without them altogether."
Some hon. members in this House seem to think the same now. In 1853, there were
4.200.000	acres in wheat in the United Kingdom. In 1910, there were 1,856,000 acres. In 1870, Great Britain and Ireland produced
13.500.000	quarters of wheat; in 1910, only 7,000,000 quarters. Cobden's prophecy was evidently a very poor one. Taking'the 105 registration districts which, in 1911, contained no portion of an urban district, I find that in the fifty years between 1801 and 1851, the agricultural population of the United Kingdom increased, and that in the next fifty years it decreased. There was a steady increase in each de-cennium under protection and a steady decline in each decennium under free trade. I would like the hon. member for Marquette, particularly to note that, because he has gone on record several times as saying that the decline in rural population in Canada is due to our policy of protection. Each census of the United Kingdom for the past forty years shows a decrease in the acreage of arable land and a corresponding increase in the acreage of grass land. This retrograde movement in agriculture has caused British statesmen considerable alarm, and has led to a very careful and special investigation. The


Michael Clark: Is my hon. friend sure that that Act has passed?


John Wesley Edwards: Yes. It passed the
House of Commons by a big majority.


Michael Clark: But not the House of Lords, I think.


John Wesley Edwards: My hon. friend is often wrong, and he is wrong this time. It passed the House of Commons by a vote of almost two to one, Nand it also passed the House of Lords, but not by such a large majority. Speaking on this Agriculture Act last December the Minister of Agriculture, Lord Lee of Foreham, said:
The national returns show that since 1910 there has been a reduction of over 450,000 acres of arable land, and since 1870 a reduction of over 3,000,000 acres.
This is the policy which the hon. member for Marquette says would be a fine one to adopt in the interests of the farmers of this country. The Minister of Agriculture of Great Britain said:

I can conceive that seif-interest might possibly dictate the conversion of the whole of England into a grazing ranch, but the national need would be ignored and the occupation of lands involves national obligations as well as individual interests.
May I also quote from Viscount Milner, Secretary of State for the Colonies? He says:	.
"I believe we are very near getting to a point where our agricultural industry will be entirely secondary and our agricultural population reduced to a most dangerously low proportion. I look with real alarm at the possibility of the agricultural people of this country being reduced to a perfectly inconsiderable and negligible minority."
Another quotation from Sir A. Boscawen:
"Free trade has made us dangerously dependent on foreign countries for our food supplies and has depopulated our country districts and massed the people more and more into our *big towns."
These are expressions of opinion which cannot lightly be passed over. In this connection may I quQte from the speech made by the hon. member for Marquette last year. He said:
"My hon. friend the Prime Minister (Mr. Meighen) also speaks of the decline of agriculture in Great Britain, and he attributes that decline to the fact that Great Britain is a free trade country. If my hon. friend seeks a reason for the decline of agriculture in Great Britain, if there has been a decline, he will find it in the land policy of the Old Country, and not in the free trade policy that obtains there. When my hon. friends says that agriculture is declining in Great Britain because a free trade policy has been in operation there for the past 70 years, he is unquestionably very wide of the mark."
I have given you not mere haphazard opinions, but the opinions of members of the British Government up to as late as December of last year, and their opinions do not agree at all with the opinions of the hon. member for Marquette.
I want to place a few more statements on Hansard in regard to this question of free trade, and I do so because the hon. member for Red Deer has, for the last ten or twelve years, ever since he became a member for this House, been voicing his free trade opinions and quoting British authorities and all that sort of thing, in an endeavour to influence public opinion in this country. He has a few disciples who, in somewhat weaker voice, echo his remarks; and for that reason, because I believe his arguments are fallacious, and because he has been putting before the country a lot of free trade folly, I want to call the attention of hon. members to a few further facts in regard to the way in which this policy has worked out in Great Britain, and the effect it has had upon agriculture in that country.
In 1860 Great Britain had 4,019,735 acres sown to wheat which produced 13,135,124 quarters, and her imports of wheat and flour were 7,364,439 quarters. In 1914 Great Britain had only 1,904,932 acres in wheat, which produced 7,804,041 quarters, and their imports were 27,509,031 quarters.
In 1870 Great Britain had 24,092,075 acres of arable land and 22,085,295 acres in pasture. By 1914 the arable land was reduced to 19,414,166 acres and the pasture land increased to 27,349,650 acres. Between 1871 and 1911 the number of farmers and farm employees had decreased by 684,256.
In 1870 the average prices were: Wheat 46/ lid, per quarter, barley 34/ 7d, oats 22/ 10d., beef 41d. per pound, mutton 51d. per pound, wool 16id. per pound.
In 1914 the average prices were: Wheat 34/ lid., barley 27/ 2d., oats 20/ lid., beef 3!d., mutton 4d., wool 1/ 2d. (12!d.) per pound.
The above figures show just how agriculture has declined in Great Britain, and what its position was in August, 1914. Why was it that British agriculture had been declining and its output dwindling, and cheap food from overseas playing an increasingly dominant part in supplying the needs of the people, while the exact opposite was taking place in Germany, a country that possessed, on the whole, a poorer soil and a less favourable climate? I wish to quote, in this connection, the words of Mr. T. H. Middleton, C.B., Assistant Secretary of the Board of Agriculture of Great Britain. He says:
"It Is not possible to resist the conclusion that it was the economic policy adopted by his country that prevented the German from following the methods of the British Farmer. The agricultural policy adopted by Germany was indeed extraordinarily successful in restoring confidence and emboldening farmers to resort to intensive cultivation. The main value of the tariff policy to German agriculture was the sense of security which it created in the farmer. It was the conviction that he was essential to the community; and it may be added that it was the knowledge that hLs grain was not wanted, and that his fellow countrymen did not depend upon his exertions that led the British Farmer at the same period to cut down expenses and reduce or at least fail to increase the productivity of his land."
Now, that is the situation. May I just refer to one industry other than farming? If free trade is a policy which cannot be assailed on the ground of unsoundness, then, Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that inasmuch as Great Britain had, at the time of adopting free trade, a lead in manufactur-

ing over any other country in the world- I do not think that any one will question that fact-and if protection was a bad policy, and one that would operate to the detriment of the country that adopted it, then Great Britain should be in a vastly better position to-day, in regard to manufacturers, than she is. Inasmuch as Great Britain, at the time she adopted free trade, had a start over every other country in manufacturing, surely, if her policy was right, she not only should have maintained her lead, but should have increased it.
Let me.refer to one industry. In 1880 Great Britain produced 8,000,000 tons, Germany about 3,000,000 tons, and the United States about 4,000,000 tons, of pig iron. By 1888, the United States had forced Great Britain into second place, and by 1902, Germany had forced Great Britain to take third place. True, free traders may say that between 1880 and 1910, British production of pdg iron had steadily increased from 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 tons under free trade. In answer to that I say that in the United States, in the same length of time, the production increased from 4,000,000 to 27,000,000 and in Germany from 3,000,000 to 14,500,000 tons- in Germany and the United States, under a *policy of protection, and in Great Britain, under free trade. Mr. Speaker, we cannot get away from this fact:	Great Britain,
under her free trade policy, has been forced by her own fiscal system to pass remedial legislation for the benefit of the farmers of the country. Under free trade agriculture has been ruined in Great Britain to such an extent that to-day that country is Obliged to pass legislation guaranteeing the prices of certain commodities to the farmers. She has to put her hand into the public treasury in order to subsidize the farmers in the growing of certain products, and that is the policy which the hon. member for Marquette says appeals to him as one that would be in the interests of the farmers of this country.
Now, Sir, the hon. member for Marquette has referred at various times to the province of Ontario, which he has misrepresented, and for that reason I wailt to place on Hansard some facts in regard to that province. I take my facts from a source which the hon. member for Marquette will hardly question on the ground of reliability. I take them from a report issued by the Drury Government under the imprimatur of the Hon. Mr. Manning Doherty, the Minister of Agriculture in that Govern-

ment. Between 1898 and 1908 the number of farms in Ontario increased from 177,000 to 183,000, and the mortgages on farms and farm stock decreased by over $65,000,000; while in the same time the number of farms in Michigan increased from 175,000 to 178,000, and the mortgages on farms and livestock increased by $79,898,000. The state of Michigan had no tariff barriers to keep the produce of its farmers out of the big centres of population on the other side of the line. Now, comparing 1919 with 1909, Ontario shows an increase of 441,758 acres in assessed land. It shows 640,670 acres increase in cleared land, and increase of 549,803 acres in slash land-that is land partly cleared- a decrease of 267,025 acres in swamp or waste land-showing that that land had been re-claimed. Every county in the province of Ontario, except three, shows an increase in the acreage cleared in the last ten years, and there has been a decrease in the number of chattel mortgages against farmers from 6,816 in 1899 to 3,457 in 1919, the total decrease amounting to $290,583. The acreage under all field crops increased by 812,091 acres in the ten years, and the value of products by $238,077,019. Ontario in the ten years shows the following increases: In the value of land $167,978,000; buildings $128,958,000; implements $59,519,000; livestock $511,315,000; total $867,772,327. Remember these are increases in the last ten years, a showing unequalled, I venture to say, by any state in the American Union. In addition to the value of livestock, let me add that the horses, cattle, sheep, swine and poultry sold or slaughtered in 1919 had a value of more than 851 million dollars in excess of that of 1909.
Now, Sir, I want to invite your attention just for a few minutes to some figures, which I will place on Hansard, along this line in regard to the United States-figures which are to me very significant, and I will promise the House not to be very much longer. I want to say that there was an increase in the number of farms in the United States between 1900 and 1910 of 624,130. Between 1910 and 1920 there was an increase of only 88,496 farms. Mr. Speaker, will you please give your attention to this fact, that out of forty-eight states in the American Union, twelve showed a decrease and thirty-six showed an increase in the number of farms in 1910 as compared with 1900. Now note this fact: In the census of 1920, twenty-five of the forty-eight states show a decrease in the number of farms, and twenty-three an increase in

the number of farms, as compared with ten years ago. It will perhaps he of special interest to the people of Ontario to know that the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan had 17,051 fewer farms in 1910	than in	1900,	and thatthese same states show a further decrease	of 65,235	farms in	1920
as compared with 1910-that is a decrease of 82,286 farms in those four states in the last twenty years, and they are right close to the big centres of population. The people of Quebec and the Maritime Provinces may be interested in the fact that the states of Maine, New Hamp. shire, Massachusetts and Vermont had 2,747 fewer farms in 1910 than in 1900, and a further reduction of 17,741 between 1910 and 1920. Add to the eight states I have already given you, the states of Con: necticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Illinois, Indiana and Iowa, which show a reduction of 26,711 farms between 1900 and 1910, and a further reduction of 50,710 between 1910 and 1920, and you have the startling fact that in the sixteen states I have named, and which are close to Canada, there are 192,110 fewer farms to-day than twenty years ago, and that the big part of the reduction has taken place in the last ten years. I do not think we need wonder, Mr. Speaker, that the United States Congress has seen fit to introduce an emergency tariff Bill for the protection of the farmers of that country. But, Sir, I want to call your attention to another fact. Not only do twenty-five of the fourty-eight states show a reduction in the number of farms, but they show a decrease in the farm acreage and in the improved acreage amounting to millions of acres in the aggregate. The farm mortgage indebtedness represents a higher percentage of the actual land values than it did ten years a^o. I want my hon. friend from Marquette, when he is trying to make an argument to influence the farmers of Ontario and the people of this country by trying to make them believe that they have abandoned farms in Ontario, to consider the figures that I have given and compare the states just across the line with the province of Ontario. I may say, Mr. Speaker, and I give it to you as my firm conviction-although I have not gone into the figures-that I believe, in so far as farm acreage and improved farm acreage are concerned, the province of Quebec will make a better showing in the last ten years than did the province of Ontario in that regard.
I want to call your attention to a very significant fact. When I found that twenty-five of the states on the other side of the line showed a decrease in the number of farms I naturally began to look around to see how matters stood with the states just across the line from Ontario. I followed that up and I found that with possibly two exceptions, speaking from memory, all of the twenty-five states which show a decrease in the number of farms in the last ten years are northern states, are states which have a climate similar to the climate that we have in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime Provinces. The states which show an increase in the number of farms and in the improved farm acreage are the states of California, Oregon, Washington, Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, and so on-those states which have a decided advantage over the northern states in that they do not have a winter to contend with. It is impossible for the United States Government to draw a line between those states which have a climate similar to ours, and those states in the south which have a mild climate, and place a duty on the products of those southern states as a means of protecting the producers of the same articles in the northern states. They cannot very well do that. But can we get over the significance of the fact that the states which show an increase in the number of farms and in the improved acreage are those which do not have a winter to contend with, and that those states which are in the north and which have a winter -states like Ohio and Illinois, and no person will question the fertility of the soil of those states-show a decrease in the number of farms and in the improved acreage.
What is the conclusion? That the farmers of those states cannot compete on even terms with the farmers who are more advantageously situated in the southern part of the country. Now, while the United States cannot put up a barrier against the farmers of the South, we are in the position of being able to protect our farmers from the unfair competition of their rivals in the southern and southwestern states where they have the advantage of a mild climate. Our farmers can produce only one crop a year; there they produce two or three crops annually. Our farmers and those of New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan are in the same position in that they have to spend thousands of dollars on barns and stables to protect their stock

during the winter months, while the stock of the southern farmers is roaming outside all the winter. That is a capital investment which our farmers must get a return on. Furthermore, they have to spend more money in this northern country in houses and clothing to protect themselves against the winter weather than have their competitors in the states of Texas, Oklahoma and Oregon; in' fact, in those states the mild winter renders unnecessary this extra expense.
And yet my hon. friends opposite announce as their policy that if they have the opportunity they will oblige our farmers to compete on even terms not only with the farmers of the southern and southwestern states, but with tliose of the Argentine, Brazil and other countries where they have the double advantage of cheap labour and a mild climate. I cannot conceive of anything more unfair and unreasonable than such a policy. The hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) gave us to understand this afternoon that the Liberal party is not a free trade party. Other hon. gentlemen in order to gain votes from those interested-in the industries of this country say that they will not at one fell swoop do away with tariff protection for manufactured goods because that would cause too much economic disturbance; while they believe in a policy of free trade they assure manufacturers that they will introduce it gradually. Mr. Speaker, have the manufacturing concerns in the Dominion as much money invested in their factories as the farmers have invested in their land, buildings, stock and implements? If free trade is such a good thing, why is it proposed only to bring it in gradually in regard to manufactured articles, but at one fell swoop so far as farm products are concerned? I maintain that their attitude is most inconsistent and most unfair.
In this period of reconstruction, Mr. Speaker, the man who is first going to feel the decline in prices is the farmer. That is quite evident to-day. I take up the paper and find that butter is offered in the city of Montreal at 25 cents and a fraction a pound.' And right here I want to say, as one representing an agricultural constituency, that I am not at all satisfied with the Budget in so far as butter and oleomargarine are concerned. It is absolutely* illogical and unfair to allow oleomargarine to be imported free of duty while four cents a pound is imposed on butter. If you say, "We have a duty of 4

cents a pound on butter for the protection of the farmers who produce that article," then how in the name of common sense can you say that it is proper to allow oleomargarine to come in without any duty at all? It certainly takes the place of butter. Last year it displaced butter in this country to the extent of some seven million pounds imported from the United States.
Hon. gentlemen opposite talk sometimes about the United States being the great natural market for the surplus farm products of Canada. That is absolute nonsense, and if instead of preparing theses on free trade hon. gentlemen opposite would take the trouble to acquaint themselves with certain facts in regard to farm production in the United States and in Canada they would not make such a ridiculous statement. The natural market for our surplus farm products is not where they have a greater surplue of those farm products than we have, but in those countries where they lack those products. On that basis I want to say that the United States is not the natural market for surplus Canadian farm products. Last year we had a surplus of 17,470,000 pounds of butter, but the United States exported over
34,400,000	pounds of butter and oleomargarine, and they supplied us with 7,352,000 pounds of that butter and oleomargarine, for which we paid them $2,275,547. When I see the farmers of the Dominion hunting all over God's creation to find a market for their surplus butter and finally selling it to some thirty-five different countries, practically greasing the whole globe in order to dispose of that surplus, and at the same time the United States is allowed to export to this country butter and eleomargarine to the extent of millions of pounds, and forcing our own butter off the home market, I state frankly that if I were handling the tariff I would say, " The duty on butter is not as high as it ought to be," and I would increase that duty. The same thing applies in regard to eggs. The United States'had a surplus of 25,183,000 dozen and sold us 7,000,000 dozen, for which we paid then! $3,333,658, although we had 5,800,000 dozen of our own eggs to dispose of. My conclusion is that when we were forced to hunt for markets all over the globe to sell those eggs, and at the same time imported 7,000,000 dozen from the United tates, our duty on eggs is not as high as it ought to be for the protection of our farmers. Canada's surplus milk last year amounted to $2,500,000 worth, as against the United States

surplus of $59,204,000. Does that look as if the United States provides a market for our milk? They ship milk in here in the form of cheese and condensed milk. Canada's surplus meat last year amounted to
260,100,000	pounds, and we had to look all over the world to find a market for it; at the same time the United States had a surplus of 1,663,700,000 pounds. Yet notwithstanding our own surplus of meat and dairy products for which we had to find a market in a great many countries, the United tates sold us last year over $10,000,000 worth of meat and over $7,790,000 worth of dairy products. I argue from that condition of affairs that the duty at present is not as high as it should he. in the interests of the Canadian farmer who is producing these articles. The Canadian farmer is entitled, just as the Canadian manufacturer is entitled, to the first chance to sell his products in thq home market. To tell him that he mustx compete on even terms with the surplus products of the world is to disregard the climatic conditions under which he operates and to treat him most unfairly. To put into effect the policy advocated by the Liberal party in this House, and by the Progressive party as well-for the two policies are the same in regard to making natural products free-to put that into effect will prevent the Canadian farmers from getting the highest prices for anything that they have to sell. Just as soon as prices in Canada become high enough to attract these products from other countries, if our doors are open they will come in and take advantage of those prices, while the countries from which they come will keep up their tariff walls against us. If Australia has surplus eggs to sell and we admit them into Canada free of duty while Australia charges a duty of 12 cents a dozen on eggs going into their country, is that fair? Is that reasonable? Is that honest treatment for the farmers of this country? In my estimation, it is not. I know that the leader of the Opposition is the father of this idea. I know that he it was who some years ago, after making a careful study of the matter, after noticing that the farmers were getting such prices as 16 cents a pound for butter, 7 cents a pound for cheese, 6i cents a dozen for eggs, 18 cents a bag for potatoes, and so on-he it was who proposed the policy of opening the doors of Canada and letting the surplus products of the world come into this country free so as to bring the prices down still lower. He said at that time that the country was on the verge
of a revolution because of the high prices the farmers were getting for their products. He advocates the same thing today, namely, that our doors should be open to allow the surplus products of the world to come in here while other countries retain their tariff walls against us. Mr. Speaker, I protest against that as most unfair to the farmers of this country. The farmers do not ask any favour, but they do ask for a fair deal, and a fair deal in my judgment they are not getting at the present time. After all, the great producers, the great manufacturers of this country are the farmers, and they more than any other class of the community deserve to be protected in their own home market. They more than any other class have built up that home market and they should be given the first place in the matter of selling their products in their own home market.
Mr. Speaker, in closing, permit me to express my appreciation of the courtesy and attention with which hon. members of the House have listened to a speech which has been somewhat more lengthy than I anticipated' at the start.
Mr. P. R. Du TREMBLAY (Laurier-Outremont) : Mr. Speaker, at this late hour I shall not undertake to make any extended remarks on the Budget. The hon. member who has just resumed his seat (Mr. Edwards) told us that he favoured the establishment of a permanent commission to revise the tariff. A couple of years ago I made that suggestion to the Government, but I must say that it seemed to fall on deaf ears. At that time I thought it would be a good thing, but I have changed my mind; I believe that the Government should take the responsibility in respect to tariff changes. But it does not appear to be the intention of the Government to make any change in the tariff, and that is why I think the reason given by the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) in his able speech of yesterday evening is hardly the real reason for the Government not making any change in the tariff. I really think the Government are afraid to touch this question, in view of the fact that an election is coming very soon, or within a year or so. The Government would like to have the support as far as possible of the big interests, and, on the other hand, they want to make the consumers of the country believe that they are doing something in the way of lightening their burdens.
I do not think that the suggestion of the Finance Minister that the action of the

United States in connection with tariff changes would affect this country is a very sound one. At the time when the speech from the Throne was delivered the Fordney Bill was before the country and it was known what that Bill contemplated and what its effect would be upon Canada. So that the reasons given by the minister and by the hon. member for Frontenac, are, in my opinion, only apparent reasons; they do not meet the real issue. During two or three sessions tariff changes have repeatedly been promised. Hon. gentlemen all remember that two or three years ago we were to have this revision of the tariff. Last year it was arranged that a special commission should travel about the country and obtain information from the different interests upon which tariff revision could be based. The Minister of Finance presided at those meetings in such a way as to merit the appreciation of the people; he had a pleasant trip throughout the country, but I am sorry that he did not come to the conclusion to give the country the benefit of that work and those conferences in the form of tariff changes at this session.
I wish to congratulate the minister for the moderate changes he has made in the tariff as outlined in his Budget speech. I really think the minister has shown a laudable desire to assist the business interests of this country. I know that he likes to hear the other man's views; he likes to learn, and he is always very desirous of doing the best he can for this country. But I know, at the same time, that he has the thankless task of collecting as much money as possible so that his colleagues in the different departments may spend it as quickly as it comes in. I do not intend to hold him responsible for all the sins of Israel, for all that this Government has done. He is rather a young man in politics and before he came into the Government almost all the wrong was done. There is not much change in the present legislation. It is moderate. I must say that I approve dropping the business tax and I will say that I do not disapprove the other changes of minor importance as regards liquor and so on. It is, however, because the changes are rather too moderate that I would complain. As I said a minute ago, the people at large had been expecting a general change in the tariff. There is in this country the feeling that the Government represents the big interests, the rich people; that it does not sufficiently protect the poor consumer, and the people thought that at this session something would be done towards reducing

the high cost of living. That has not been done. Although there is not much change, the wrong that I spoke of a minute ago still remains; the heavy debt contracted by this Government, the unfair, unjust taxation imposed on the people during the last five or six years still exists, and if you go to any place in the country to-day, you will find a feeling of unrest.
It is, perhaps, no secret to the Government that it will have difficulty in finding, amongst business men, many who approve its conduct in administering the affairs of the country, especially since the end of the war. Nearly all business men in Canada are against the Government, and when the elections take place, the Government will fare badly.
What is the condition of affairs to-day? I was speaking of the business men especially, because members of the Government often speak about the business interests of this country. The general feeling throughout the country is really one of discouragement, because the people feel that the Government is watching them in the enterprises that they undertake. The people have to pay heavy taxes in customs and excise, on cheques, on notes, and on many necessities of life, and then if they dare to make a litle money by their efforts or energy, they feel that the Government is watching them, ready to take them by the throat and take away part of their little profit by means of the income tax. This is a time when individual enterprise and energy should be given encouragement.
The Minister of Finance told us that, in round figures, the public debt of Canada was about $2,350,000,000. I do not know if this huge sum of money comprises the obligations of the different railways such as the Grand Trunk and the Canadian National railways. A debt of $2,350,000,000 means a debt of $300 per capita for every man, woman and child in Canada. If you take a father with his wife and three children, that means that he owes $1,500 for himself and his family. If you take into consideration what the people owe for their provincial debt, for their muni-
11 p.m. cipal debt, you will come to the same conclusion as thoughtful business men who realize that the country is not on the road to prosperity. The proposed expenditure for next year, according to the minister, will be about $435,000,000. We must add to this obligations that we have to meet for the railways, obligations which I understand are in the neighbourhood of $137,000,000. That makes a total

of $582,000,000. As the revenue supposed to be available is $372,000,000, you have really a deficit of $210,000,000 to meet this year. My hon. friends opposite may say to me: "Well, it is only for this year that we have to meet these extra obligations for the railways." But according to men who know, and according to the way the situation appears to-day, we shall have a recurring deficit of between one hundred and two hundred million dollars on account of railways.
The Minister of Finance, in his very learned and capable speech, referred to the golden times of the Liberal party, which assumed office in 1896, and whose long and prosperous administration we recall with pleasure. Let us compare the condition then with the position in which the country is now. At that time the public debt of Canada was about $340,000,000 or about $42 per capita. That amount represented all the money that had been spent to build up the country, by way of subsidies, to assist the construction of railways, and expenditures on post offices, wharves and other public necessities. What do we spend this year? $582,000,000, or $73 per capita. That is to say, we are spending this year for the administration of this country two-thirds more than our entire debt in 1911. It is no use of hiding our heads in the sand like the ostrich; we may as well look the facts in the face. We are to-day spending nearly twice as much as the entire national debt in 1911. That is why the people, and very properly so, do not think our financial position is very good, and why they are calling for a halt on the Government spending millions as if they were thousands. I am pleased to see the Prime Minister in his seat, also the Minister of Finance. I want to tell them that that is the message of the people of the country and of the business men of Montreal.
The Government may ask me what I suggest as a remedy, and in reply to my suggestion they may say, as they usually do: Oh, but our present condition is the result of the war; we have been through a war, and we have had to spend millions on this and that. I would very humbly suggest that if the Government are in earnest, if they are strong enough, if they are sufficiently independent of strong "pull," if they really want to do something for the good of this country, if they really want to put aside patronage and adopt some other method of administration, there is still hope for Canada-I will not say, of getting
on a sound business basis-but of being able to make a fresh start and to gradually pay off her debt.
I would suggest that the Government should give up now and completely their policy in regard to the railroads. Give the railroads away. A proposition was made some days ago by the Canadian Pacific. I do not say that that proposition was the best that could be made, but if it is necessary, pay the Canadian Pacific to take these roads over, because the Government will never make money out of them. They will always be a burden. Why? Because you have too much expenditure on management for instance. It is nothing new that I say. Any capable railway official will tell you that parallel railways are a big expense to a country and must be operated at a loss. Take, for instance, a district that I know well, between Ottawa and Montreal. You have every day of the week about ten trains coming over the Canadian Pacific from Montreal to Ottawa, about seven over the Grand Trunk, and four over the Canadian Northern. Why is this? From information that has been given to me I believe that ten trains would cover this whole district that is to-day served by over twenty. It is this duplication that adds to the expense, and we know that in winter the expense is. especially heavy. So I say it would pay the Government to get rid of these roads, but I do not suppose the Government will do it, and I will tell you frankly why. The Government wants to keep the roads on account of the patronage it can exercise in connection with them. The Government may say that there is no more patronage, but the people of this country know to the contrary. It is no use trying to hide the fact. The people know why the Government want to keep and operate these railways.
I could say the same thing with regard to the Canadian Government Merchant Marine. Why not sell these ships? You will lose probably about $20,000,000 if you sell this year, but it is better to take that loss now than to continue your losses from year to year. The report of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Ballantyne) issued in December last is not very encouraging. I know him well; I know he has good intentions; I know he did his best, and that under the present conditions he could not do much better. It is not his fault; it is the trade conditions in this and other countries. Probably the

minister made a mistake in not taking our advice last year when we told him to sell. That was the time. If he had sold the vessels last year the Government would not have lost one cent, but the vessels were kept in the hands of the Government just for patronage.
What are the facts with regard to our merchant marine? The Government has built about 47 ships, costing about $50,000,000, borrowed from this country on Victory Bonds, costing us 51 per cent interest. The Minister of Marine tells us that we made $781,000 on the merchant marine this year, but he did not take into account that we have to pay 51 per cent interest on that investment of $50,000,000. When that is taken into consideration, the year's operation would show a deficit of about $1,500,000. It has been stated to the House that there has been a shrinkage in the value of these ships. These ships cost us $191 per ton to build; we could build them to-day for $131 per ton. Mr. Bosworth, chairman of the Canadian Pacific Ocean Services, speaking at Vancouver not very long ago said:
"I could get all the ships I want, enough to fill your whole harbor (Vancouver) here for from $50 to $75 a ton." Therefore, considering this tonnage shrinkage, there has not only been experienced an actual loss in operation, but a serious depreciation i-n capital as well. Last year every ship in operation could have been disposed of for what they cost; to-day it is doubtful whether they could be sold for two-thirds of their cost_ For this condition, four things are responsible:
(1)	An unlooked-for surplus of ships. (There are 16,000,000 more tons of shipping in the world to-day than at the beginning of the war) ;
(2)	A decline in ocean freight rates. (On some commodities it has been as much as 65 per cent.) ;
(3)	Smaller cargoes; and
(4)	An increase in operation costs; supplies and wages having advanced from between 100 and 300 per cent.
Now, this matter of shipping will cost us money this year as well as in the year to come, and, I think that the Government should pay some attention to representations which are made to them in this respect and in regard to the expenditures in connection with the Militia Department. We are spending this year for military and naval purposes some $20,000,000, and I think this is altogether wrong. Our men, in my opinion, and in the opinion of the majority of the people, had enough training in Europe during the past five or six years, without coming back to this country to go in for any military course in Canada at great expense to the public. During the past few weeks we have voted some $3,

000,000 for the militia, an amount which is entirely unnecessary and which is an unwarranted extravagance at the present time. To say the least, we could have waited for two or three years before spending this large sum of money, and I cannot reconcile this expenditure with the Government's pretensions at retrenchment in the various departments.
There is another matter in which the Government's policy is not meeting with favour in the country; I refer to the Civil Service, both Inside and Outside. The Government can find room for economy in the Civil Service of Canada; it is my opinion that there are too many civil servants at present and that some are over-paid. The Government should be able to economise in this direction, but I presume they dare not touch this department of the public service. Now, if the Government were really anxious to help the people by reducing the burden which they have to bear to-day, they would take vigorous steps to economise in the various branches of public affairs; if they did so it would go a long way towards restoring public confidence in our system of government.
May I urge once more, as I have done many times in this House that the Government endeavour to secure, if not our full share, at least some reasonable portion of the war indemnity that is due us. I have pressed this question many times, but apparently the Government is heedless of my representations. Mr. Speaker, we went into the war with the distinct understanding that we should be reimbursed, and the then Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden), frequently declared during the war that we would not stop until Canada was indemnified to the last cent, until Germany was made to pay or something to that effect. Well, in view of these professions on the part of the Government, I was surprised the other day to hear the statement in a speech by the hon. member for Durham (Mr. Rowell), in this House, that the advice which he would give would be not to press this question too far. I was really surprised to hear such advice, especially from an hon. gentleman who has been much talked of as our probable representative at Washington. I always considered that this question of the indemnity that Canada, with the rest of the Empire and of the Allied countries, would get from Germany, was one of the most important that would be considered in deciding the Peace Treaty, and I say, Mr. Speaker, that about the only reason

which can be given why the Prime Minister might profitably attend the conference to be held in London in June is that he should press Canada's claim in this respect. This, I think, should be the preeminent question in his mind when he goes to London. Canada should have her share, and her proper share, of the indemnity. All other countries are looking out for themselves; France, England and the rest are looking after their own interests. While the war was on England did not lose sight of her own interests; she sought to secure a market in Africa and elsewhere, and she has already benefited to a large extent at the expense of Germany, not only directly with respect to money payments, but indirectly in other respects. The mere fact that the German marine is destroyed is advantageous to Great Britain as well as to New Zealand. This question of indemnity is not easy of solution. I read a despatch the other day, containing the report of an interview which was had with Mr. Massey, the Prime Minister of New Zealand. He said:
The Canadian Government expected to get some reparation from Germany through the sale of German ships. I do not believe a word of;it. Neither Canada, nor New Zealand will get anything, and we must make up our mind to it. It is really quite absurd to think of it. A11 that Germany can pay must go elsewhere-the Dominions must realize that.
That is the statement of the Prime Minister of New Zealand, uttered about a month ago, and I trust that the Prime minister of this country will not go to the conference that is to be held in England in June next imbued with the same views.' I tell him now that if he goes to London with the firm determination properly to represent this country's position and to press her claim, he will merit the gratitude of the Canadian people, and in this respect I trust that his efforts, if he exerts them in the right direction, will meet with every success. Now, Mr. Speaker, at this late hour-it is now about half past eleven-I do not intend to take up more time, because I realize that I have already taxed the patience of hon. members and also of the press. I shall therefore resume my seat, expressing, in conclusion, the hope that the Prime Minister will take note of the suggestion I have just offered him.
Mr. 0. D. CASSELMAN (Dundas): I wish, first, humbly to offer my congratulations to the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton), on the fact that he has outlined in his Budget speech methods of taxation which I hope and believe will
adequately meet the difficult conditions that now exist in the country and, in so doing, has imposed the minimum burden on all classes of the Canadian people. The imposition of taxes is at best a disagreeable duty, disagreeable to the Government that finds itself under the necessity of imposing them, and infinitely more disagreeable to the taxpayer who is called upon to pay the taxes. So that the Minister of Finance, in an effort to provide for the extraordinary expenditures with which Canada is faced this year, had a difficult and disagreeable task; and in that he accomplished it so admirably, he is entitled to the commendation and the approval of the Canadian people, which I have no doubt he will receive. In reading the Hansard report of the speeches delivered in the last " Go as you please and free for all " debate, on the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne I noticed that in almost every speech delivered by the members of the Opposition-both the Liberal Opposition and the Agrarian Opposition-a large part of their arguments was devoted to a demand for a dissolution of this Parliament and an immediate appeal to the people of Canada in the way of a general election, and on every subsequent occasion, which offered the slightest pretext, those arguments were repeated and those appeals were made. Mr. Speaker, this Government was elected, as all governments are, to carry on , the business of the country for the regular Parliamentary term. It is true, Sir, that at the time of the last general election, in December, 1917, there was one matter or question which, in importance and danger, infinitely exceeded and dominated all other issues. It is true that at that time there was one mandate-one paramount duty- which, by an overwhelming majority, was laid on this Government by the people of Canada. Will anyone say, Sir,' that that duty was not performed, that that mandate was not obeyed and discharged, in q way that brought everlasting glory and honour to Canada; discharged in such a way that it came to pass that all the living forces of Canada were thrown into the struggle and helped very materially to shorten and bring the struggle to a satisfactory conclusion; discharged in such a way that an army of
500,000	men was placed in the field, and back of that army, here in Canada, was another army of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who worked unceasingly that equipment, munitions, food, money, everything required for the war,

were provided in abundance; discharged in such a way that our financial fabric remained secure, that, our industries were prosperous, that our commerce was uninterrupted; discharged in such a way that we can look forward to an era of national peace, national prosperity and national safety? Is it because, Sir, that duty was discharged so thoroughly and that mandate obeyed so honourably, that the call is now made to dissolve this Parliament and appeal to the country in the way of a general election?
Mr. Speaker, no charges have been made against this Government. The searchlight of the Opposition, which has been turned to _ play on every part and on every point of the Government's activities, has disclosed, no scandal. Canada and this Government stand unique in this regard. In all previous wars, and in almost every country that was engaged in this war, scandals abounded; but the most diligent search on the part of the Opposition has failed to disclose one single scandal, one solitary case of graft, one instance of mal-admin-istration, and the plea for dissolution, made so continuously by the Opposition, stands unsupported by any single reason or by the wishes of the people of Canada.
A general election inevitably will come soon. In the ordinary course of time, perhaps before the Opposition wishes it, an election must come. What will be the issue? It must be the tariff. The leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) may endeavour to evade that issue-to advocate this policy in one place and that policy in another place. The leader of the Agrarian party, in this House, is not the out-and-out free trader that he professes to be in some parts of the country. There is an evident disposition on the part of the leaders of both parties to be all things to all men. But, Sir, the country knows that the Liberal party was pledged to the platform adopted in this city in August, 1919. The leader of the Opposition was chosen as the leader of a party that adopted a free trade tariff policy as one of the important planks of its platform. The people expect the Liberals to maintain and to stand on that platform. They will be judged by that platform.
Since 1878 the tariff has been a political issue. The merits of protection and of free trade, and the evils of both, have been discussed for more than forty years on every political platform in this country and, Sir, it still appears to be a debatable question. But out of the multiplicity of

arguments and the endless debate I think the following facts have been adduced: First, tariff protection is a selfish policy of government. It goes on the assumption that our standards of living are higher than the standards of living in other countries with which we must compete in trade, that it is by protection we must maintain those higher standards of living. 2nd. that free trade equalizes the living conditions of the countries betweeit which it operates. Where free trade exists the only difference in living conditions should be the cost of transportation. If we were legislating for the whole world undoubtedly the principle of free trade should obtain. This principle is well illustrated in our constitution, which provides that there shall be free interchange of trade between the provinces in order that conditions of living in all parts of the Dominion shall be as nearly equal as possible. Third, that a certain tariff policy may be good at one period of a country's industrial history and bad at another; that as Industrial and economic conditions change, the tariff should be changed to meet those conditions. Fourth, that protection may be made to serve a double purpose-provide revenue; afford protection. And, fifth, that protection, in order to be just and fair, ought not only to protect all classes of the people, but if it imposes a burden, that the burden should be equally distributed.
At this late hour I will not attempt to offer any arguments in favour of the first four propositions. The strongest arguments against protection and in form Of free trade hinge around the fifth proposition. Those who oppose the tariff for protection generally contend that the farmers get no benefit from protection; that on the contrary, they are compelled to bear the heaviest part of the burden; that they are compelled to sell their products in a free trade market and to buy what they use and consume in a protected market; that since they produce a surplus of farm products which they must sell in the world's market, therefore the world's price fixes the price of their entire product. If those arguments are well founded, Sir, then protection is an unmitigated and unqualified evil which hinders and hampers the greatest of Canada's industries,-an industry in which more than half of our people are directly or indirectly engaged, one in which an immense amount of capital is invested, and a vast amount of human energy is directed.

I want to lay down two propositions, both of which, I think, will be readily admitted by all students of the subject. First, if we exported all the products of the farm and consumed none, then a tariff on farm products would be of no benefit whatever to the farmers. Second, if we consumed all that we produced, and the balance of the world had a surplus of farm products, then the farmers would get the full benefit of whatever duty might be levied on such products. The chief industry of my county happens to be the production of milk and the manufacture of milk products, and I should like to use that article as an example to illustrate how the propositions that I have laid down work out in actual practice. For instance, if, instead of Canada being an exporter of milk products we consumed all we produced and were, even to the slightest extent, an importer, then the producers of milk would benefit to the fullest extent by whatever duty might be imposed on milk products. If, on the other hand, we exported all our milk products, and consumed none then producers would get no benefit because of the tariff. If our surplus were small, the benefit would be greater than if our surplus were large, because we would be approaching the point of total consumption where we would get the full benefit of the tariff; in other words, the larger the home market the greater the benefit of the tariff to the producers. In my county we have three markets for milk: first, the world's market for milk when made into cheese; secondly, the world's market for milk when made into condensed milk; and, thirdly, the market of the city of Montreal, which is available only to those few who have secured connections with the city dairies. The price received by those farmers for the milk which they deliver in Montreal is from 75 cents to $1 per hundred pounds more than the price received by those whose milk is manufactured into cheese. It seems strange that this should be so, but a better article must be produced and shipped in the best possible condition, which, in itself, is a thing to be 'desired. Our Department of Agriculture has for years been aiming to increase the quality of farm production. Montreal gets its milk supply from the surrounding country. Naturally as the city grows larger and larger, the dairymen are compelled to go farther and farther afield for their milk. The demand is not yet sufficiently large to take care of all the supply included in a radius that would 203
cover my county, but if it were, all would ship their milk to that market and all would avail themselves of the highest price. Could a better example of the advantages of the home market be given than this? Those who can avail themselves of that home market who have been fortunate enough or provident enough to secure city connections get 25 per cent more for their products than those who have to accept the price fixed by the world market.
Naturally, those farmers who ship their produce for consumption in the city are anxious that the city should grow, they want to see the city market develop and increase in value; and if protection is necessary for the growth of our cities, then they want protection. The home market that absorbs farm produce is the population of our cities, towns and villages. Analyse those centres of population and it will be found that a considerable part of the activities of their inhabitants is centred in the factories. Manufacturing is the life blood of the wholesale and the retail trade, of transportation, of professional practice and of commercial enterprise. In a word, business clusters around the factory. Close or restrict the factory and those dependent activities dwindle correspondingly and the home market declines. Even in Canada, Sir, which is said to be, and is, an agricultural country, it is worthy of notice that 80 per cent of our farm products is consumed at home and only about 20 per cent exported. Surely, Sir, the market that takes care of four-fifths of our products is the market that should and must be protected. The home market, under normal conditions, is a constant market, and in a country where the population is steadily increasing it is a growing market. A foreign or open market is an uncertain market. It may be entirely destroyed by war; it may be restricted by legislation or other economic causes.
The stock argument of free traders when they are speaking against protection is that protection builds up the industrial centres at the expense of the rural districts. That argument, Sir, is not well founded. The facts do not bear out that contention, because our agricultural production has increased more rapidly under protection than has our industrial production. In 1900 the total agricultural production was $364,906, 866. During the first twenty years of this century it has increased by six times. Surely Sir, that is a marvellous record, made in what is called a protected country. In 1919 it had increased from the amount I have



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mentioned to $1,975,841,000. Then, again, the average capital invested in Canadian farms has increased marvellously. In my county during the last ten years the value of land has increased from 25 to 50 per cent, and stock also has increased in value. Taking the Canada Year Book's estimate of? the agricultural capital of Canada in 1917, as $6,830,145 and dividing this sum by the number of farms in Canada, given by Government statistics as 730,000, we find that the average capital per farm was $9,356. It has increased very materially since. It is now much larger.
Another argument of free traders is that protection has caused rural depopulation. It is unfortunately true that, in Ontario, our rural population has decreased, but that decrease has not been due to protection. In 1911 the rural population of Canada was 54.45 per cent of the total population. In England, when free trade was adopted, the rural population was 49.08 per cent of the whole! In 1913, in England, after many years of free trade, the rural population had fallen to 29.9 per cent. In free trade England the rural districts became depopulated infinitely more rapidly than in protected Canada. The true explanation of rural depopulation is not to be found in the tariff. The causes are obvious. One cause, I think, is the advent of farm machinery and labour saving devices. With the present labour saving farm devices one or two men can do the work which required five or six to do some years ago. Then again, Sir, in taking our census it is usual to include in the rural population the inhabitants of small unincorporated villages. Unfortunately those villages are disappearing. The village blacksmith, the village shoemaker, the village wheelwright, the ordinary village mechanic are disappearing, at least from rural Ontario, and the work formerly done by them is now being done in the factories of the cities. These are two reasons which I think account largely for the rural depopulation.
I have said, Sir, that protection is a selfish policy of government. But Canada's fiscal policy should be designed for Canada. We are here to legislate for Canada. If we were here to legislate for the whole world, undoubtedly free trade should be adopted. But, as I say, we are here to legislate for Canada, not for the world; we are not international philanthropists. But after all, Canada cannot stand alone; a selfish Canadian policy dictates that we must have regard to the action of the nations with which we trade. The fiscal

policies of countries are interrelated; they swing together like a pendulum, now towards free trade and now towards protection. This fact is significant, because the swing of the world's pendulum is strongly towards protection. The war has accentuated that swing. All the nations which were engaged in the war are taking extraordinary precautions to guard their home markets, to guard their home industries in order that their demobilized soldiers and others who were engaged in war work and their people generally may have employment in their own country. Great Britain, so often cited as the highest example of a free trade country, is in the front in this movement. Mr. Speaker, Great Britain is no longer a free trade country. She has become less and less a free trade country. The Hon. Austin Chamberlain, new House leader of the party in power in England, said in a speech which he delivered not long ago that the United Kingdom raised the sum of £149,460,000 from customs duties imposed on goods entering the United Kingdom during the year ending March 31, 1920. That is, every resident of the United Kingdom paid in that year a custom tariff tax of about $16-and that in free trade Britain. In Canada the average tariff per capita tax during that year, exclusive of the war tariff now removed, was about $19.50. Yet some describe Britain, with an average per capita customs tax of $16 as a free trade country and Canada with an average tax of $19.50 as a protectionist country.
Most countries are increasing instead of lowering their tariff protection. France increased her tariff rates during the last year by amounts varying from 10 to 300 per cent. Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Roumania, and the Balkan States have made general increases in their tariffs. Recent dispatches show that still higher protection is being provided in most of these countries, especially in France, Italy and Spain. Japan is now maintaining a high protective tariff. The following clause was adopted by the National Republican Convention of the Republican party of the United States at Chicago on June 10, 1920:
The uncertain and unsettled conditions of International balances, the abnormal and economic trade situation of the world and the Impossibility of foretelling correctly even the near future, precludes the formulation of a definite programme to meet conditions a year hence, but the Republican party reaffirms its belief In the protective principle and pledged itself to a revision of the tariff as soon as conditions shall make it necessary for the preservation of the market for American labour, agriculture, and industry.

Official records show that there is not in the world to-day one country making any pretensions towards industrial greatness that is without / a protective tariff. Canada's tariff legislation, designed for national development, must be affected by the fact that every great industrial nation has erected protective tariff barriers against the exploitation of its markets by other nations. Were our customs
12 m. tariff removed, while other countries maintained and strengthened theirs, our markets would be deluged with the overflow goods from protected foreign countries, while our goods would he largely shut out of foreign countries. Let me just say that a system under which Canada, for forty years, has improved so rapidly, sanely and uniforpily, ought not to be hastily discarded, to be replaced by a system of doubtful character, a system which every other great industrial nation of the world is getting further and further away from, a system which, however faultless in theory, has been found to be a failure in actual practice.
There is just one other matter that I should like to refer to very shortly, and that is the tendency, in Canada, in fact, throughout the world, to adopt a system of Government which might -well be described as the group system. I can see nothing wrong in any group of men, whether they are united by ties of similar occupation or not, in uniting to secure adequate parliamentary representation. It is not only the privilege, but the duty of every class, every group, every district, to secure adequate and legitimate parliamentary representation; but the effort to secure representation is one thing, and to endeavour to secure control of the government of a country is quite a different thing. The departure lies not in an effort to secure class representation, but in an effort to secure class control. Party government is the tried and proven principle upon which democracy itself is founded. It stands alike for the liberty of the individual and for the protection of the nation as a unit. Any system of government which is based on a principle that makes a sharp distinction between the classes of our citizenship, is fatal to the welfare of our citizenship.
The government should be representative of all classes of citizens. I am not referring particularly to what is known in this House as the Farmers' Group, though they are the greatest offenders because they have been the most successful, because they have brought their group organization
203>
to the highest pitch of perfection, and (because, in Ontario at first, the farmers' organization have served notice that none but farmers need apply for admission to their organization.
Only a short time ago, in Ontario, Premier Drury, broadened, I suppose, by the responsibilities of office, announced publicly that his party was big enough, broad enough, liberal enough to include representatives from every group and every class in Ontario. This was the announcement of a statesman. This was a welcome announcement to the people of Ontario, because it indicated a desire to revert to the sane and tried system of party government. But it was not welcomed by the farmers' organization; it was not approved by Mr. Morrison, the secretary, who appears to control that organization, and Mr. Drury was immediately and publicly notified that he was Premier of the province of Ontario by the grace of, and as the representative of, the United Farmers of Ontario. If he wished to maintain the position, of premier, he must be good or get out, He did not want to get out; he decided to be good. One wonders whether Ontario is governed from Queen's Park or from the offices of the United Farmers of Ontario, in Toronto. When Premier Drury is inclined to broaden out and make his party a provincial party, he is called upon the carpet by Mr. Morrison and disciplined, and he leaves a chastened, docile representative of the United Farmers of Ontario alone. In Ontario, there is no attempt on the part of the Farmers' party to disguise the fact that the Drury Government is a class government, and that they intend to see that it is maintained as such. If the Premier is not so inclined, he must give way to another who will be, and this class organization is now to be used for the distinct purpose of aiming at control of federal affairs. The Drury Government in an accident. It does not represent a majority of the farmers of Ontario. A study of the vote shows that its support came from both country and town. The Drury Government is an accident; an accident for which the farmers alone are not responsible. It is a government placed in power by the disaffected and dissatisfied voters of Ontario, by those who had or imagined they had grievances against either the Hearst or the Federal Government. It was a revolt against the restrictions and restraints placed on individual liberty that the war might be carried on with the fullest vigour. It was a protest against the curtailment of privileges which people had come
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to regard as rights, a curtailment of privileges made necessary in order that the war might be prosecuted with vigour and success.	'
In eastern Ontario, at least, the Farmers' party is already preparing for the coming election campaign, and in the rural counties the political fight will be, not between the Government supporters and the Liberals, but between the Government supporters and the candidates of the United Farmers of Ontario.
What will be the nature of the appeals of the Farmers' candidates to the electors in the coming election? They will appeal for free trade, yes; but principally, they will appeal to the electors to condemn this Government for measures passed by this Government during the war-measures which in the opinion of this Government were demanded in order that the war might be carried on with the utmost vigour, but which in their opinion interfered with their personal rights and privileges, limited their profits, and increased the difficulties of farming. They will insist that increased production was infinitely more necessary than increasing the size of the army; they will condemn this Government for fixing the price of cheese too low, and for fixing the price of feeds too high. They will condemn this Government for wheat control; for the actions of the Canada Food Board; for the regulation providing that housewives must use a certain amount of substitutes in their flour at a time, Sir, when milling companies were forcing flour on dealers and dealers were forcing it on their customers. Those are the arguments which will be used, and above all, the iniquities of the Military Service Act. The appeal will be to condemn this Government for those things, and to vote for a party whose leader was a member of that Government when those things were done. Consistent? Hardly. Mr. Speaker, the whole political history of the 'vvorld affords no such ludicrous example of political inconsistency as the selection by the Farmers' party of Ontario of the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) as their leader.
They complain of the fixing of the price of cheese. The hon. member for Marquette was a member of the Government when that was done. Not only was he a member of the Government, but he was minister in charge of the department which exercises control of dairy products.
They complain of the fixing of the price of feeds. The hon. member for Marquette was a member of the Government when

that was done. Not only was he a member of the government, but he was Minister of Agriculture, and so is most responsible!
They complain of the fixing of the price of wheat. Who is most responsible for that act? Of course, there must be collective responsibility, but the hon. member for Marquette was Minister of Agriculture when the price of wheat was fixed. He was President of the Grain Growers' Grain Company, first, at a salary of $15,000 a year and Minister of Agriculture second at a much less salary.
Who, when the farmers' sons were conscripted, if the need of the farm was greater than the need of the army, should have been the first to register a protest, and if unheeded, to resign? The member for Marquette.
They complain because the farmers' sons were conscripted, and, at the same time, are advised to vote for a party led by the hon. member for Marquette, who gave his blessing and benediction to that Act, who was a minister of the Crown when that Act was passed. We cannot get away from the fact that agriculture is now and must be for generations to come the most important Canadian industry. We cannot get away from the fact that it is an industry that has not always enjoyed rewards which the labour and capital involved entitled it to. We cannot get away from the fact that it is not profitable enough or attractive enough to induce those who are now on the farms to remain there or others to take up farming as a life's occupation. If by organization and union a better condition of affairs can be brought to prevail, such organization and union should have our hearty support and sympathy, but organization to promote better conditions of trade is one thing, and political organization to secure control of the government is quite another thing. The one is justifiable and practical-the other is neither.
In conclusion let me just say that the war has brought us an immense debt. It has left us. with a restless, uneasy people, but it has brought us something else which immeasurably outweights the dangers of those. It has left us with a national purpose and a faith in our national prowess.
We are richer because of the war, infinitely richer, because something more imperishable than money, than our lands, our mountains and our seas, has been created, and is peculiarly and eternally our own- a national faith, a national spirit.
Mr. W. K. BALDWIN (Standstead):: Mr. Speaker, in olden times when the Budget was debated in the House it used to be provocative of vigorous speeches, but thi3 particular one seems to have got down to the basis of a fellowship meeting. We had two ex-Ministers of Finance to-day talking along the same line, saying that tariff revision was to take place.
The tariff question has always been an important one in this country. It has involved the life of many governments. At the present time we have an appalling debt, which imposes very great burden upon all our people. The railways have been more largely responsible for this than anything else, and they constitute the darkest cloud in the future. Personally I was very much relieved when the great Shaugh-nessy made overtures to the Government recently to take over the National Railways. I believe that Shaughnessy is the highest authority in Canada in connection with railway operation. He was brought up under the great Van Horne, has had a vast experience, and he shows his genius in his selection of his lieutenants.
The hon. member for Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) has discussed the tariff reductions, reciprocity, and so forth. Some have accused the Liberal party of being a free trade party. I probably have had as long an experience as most members of this House and I have never known the Liberal party tb proclaim a free trade policy. It may have been proclaimed by individuals, but not by the party leaders. Away back in the days soon after Confederation, when the Hon. Edward Blake and Hon. Alexander Mackenzie had the colonial tariff, that great, opportunist and leader Sir John A. Macdonald came in with the national policy. I have heard that question thrashed out on the hustings of this country for more than 40 years. The policy of.recipro city in natural products was advocated by the late great Sir John Macdonald, the Hon. John Henry Pope and the Hon. C. C. Colby, who represented the county I now have the honour to represent.
The present Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster), has gone down to Washington many times and tried to effect a reciprocity treaty in natural products with the United States, and this I think shows .the insincerity of the right hon. gentleman. I trust the day will come when we shall take this question of the tariff out of politics, and appoint a commission of scientific men to consider it from the international viewpoint, because
it is a matter of international concern in which we have to deal with other countries as they wish to deal with us. You cannot have a hard and fast tariff that will satisfy every section of the country. Now, there are other matters of greater importance than the tariff at the present time, and one question of supreme urgency is the development, to the best possible advantage, of the great resources of Canada. To-day Japan is making practically all the silk goods used in Canada, and she is invading the markets for cotton, musical instruments, etc. She is manufacturing almost every conceivable thing, and Germany is doing the same. That country is selling steel to the manufacturers here at 8 cents per pound, for which they have been paying 32 cents to the United States and Great Britain or wherever they could get this product.
What with the eight-hour day and the laziness that is rampant in this country to-day, it is quite evident that if we do not wake up we shall find ourselves in an unenviable position. We should do something to prevent certain people from overrunning the country, berating capital and labour, and every decent institution that tends to hold together the fabric of a civilized country. The people who went from my part of the country down to the New England cotton mills to work in the early days, laboured twelve hours a day, from half past five in the morning to half past six at night, the young men and women at 35 cents a day, and the older men at $1.25. And they were perfectly content and happy. Conditions to-day, however, are entirely different. Canada and the United States can truthfully be said to be in analogous positions, in that conditions in this country are much the same as the conditions that prevailed in the United States after the Civil War there. By inflation, prices have reached a fictitious levelty.
I am interested in the tariff because I desire to see the development here of a great country. I believe in commercial unity. I think that commercial unity should be aimed at, and I should like to see the whole of the British possessions in the Caribbean sea, not only commercially, but politically, united with Canada. But in order that this may be realized, there must be no coercion; every part of the Empire must enter the union willingly. If possible, I should like to see Canada indemnified for the part she took in the Great War. In this cbnnection it seems to be that the

My hon. friend from Frontenac has been making a lot of comparisons. He cannot deny that the Laurier Government was elected upon certain pledges and that it fulfilled all its pledges. It accorded preferential treatment to Great Britain and reduced the postage from three cents to two cents. Times were good and almost everybody was prosperous. Now the Government is taxing everybody and everything. Perhaps the only thing that escapes taxation is the oxygen in the air that we breathe. Under the Laurier Administration prosperity prevailed throughout the length and breadth of the land and the people were happy and contented. To-day we have a Government that does not administer the affairs as they should be administered; it is watching for the opportune time to hold an election and seeking every chance to re-elect itself. I ask, if that is doing right by the common people of this great country? We have the greatest country in the world if we will only develop it by sane policies. Instead of bringing coal from Pennsylvania let us utilize our native coal and our great water-powers.
The Minister of Finance speaking in Montreal and Toronto gave the people good advice to spend their money at home and support Canadian industries; and the Minister of Trade and Commerce gave similar advice. With our Canadian dollar so deflated in the United States a person must be insane to buy anything there that is procurable in this country. But I fear that in many respects we fail as a people. For instance, if we used all our money to develop our own country instead of spending it to develop other countries we would be in a far better position than we are to-day.
I have' not seen any particular attention paid to our great railway problem. With our constantly increasing deficits, already running into nearly $100,000,000 annually, would it not have been better to have treated our railroads in the same way as the United States have treated theirs? As a matter of fact we should have let our railroads go into the receiver's hands in the first place. I would not he in favour of our National system being absorbed by the great Canadian Pacific railway, but if the Government could make an arrangement with the Shaughnessy syndicate, or whoever it may be, to take the system over the Government would be in a position to see that freight and express rates were lowered, and they could control operating expenses, to a greater or less extent. For instance, the McAdoo award cost the Cana-

dian Pacific Railway $12,000,000 last year, and it severely handicapped our National railways. In fact, we are playing into the hands of the United States every day. That is what pleases me in regard to the Budget, that it gives still further preferential treatment to the British Empire.
There is not very much to be censured in this Budget, except that I would not have removed the tariff on beer and confectionery. My personal impression is that the higher duty in this regard would be an advantage to our youth and to many of our adults. But the business men of this country have stood about all the taxation they can in this respect, that there is never any lack of enterprise among them, but they are disinclined to embark on any enterprise when they see the Government so ready to take away their profits. Therefore, I am glad that no further hardship has been imposed, as it is undoubtedly a mistaken policy which tends to destroy the ambition of our people. Men used to go into a bank and say to the manager, "We want $50,000, or $100,000, and we not only want it, but we are going to have it. If you do not like to accomodate us, we will get the money somewhere else." But they would be courageous men who would talk that way to-day, simply because the banks have not got the money to loan. We have taxed the people to the limit. And with oUr huge railroad deficit what can we expect in the future? I say that the Government will not get from the sales tax in 1921 6p per cent of what they got last year, and the same remark applies to the income tax, simply because industries ail over the country are passing dividends. I know, because I am hit very severely myself, and I am aware that others are hit a mighty sight worse. But the Government are simply going along in a spendthrift way building up military works. Have we any right at this juncture to be expropriating money for drilling purposes? We have men enough in this country to-day trained to the hilt to last a decade. I say to our soldiers: If you saved your country from Germany, it is your duty now to save her from bankruptcy. Let every abled bodied returned man consider himself a civilian and do his best to develop the resources of Canada and make her people a great nation.
I have not much to say about labour, because it is a question that often arouses a cantankerous spirit, but I venture to say that our labour organizations are paying thousands of dollars every year to American scalawags who tell our working-

men: "Keep a stiff upper lip and don't work." This advice can only lead to a most appalling state of affairs, and already small investors are holding their money and very few institutions are running more than twenty-five or thirty per cent of their capacity.	*
In the Eastern Townships, the fairest land in all the Dominion, there were built last year a number of plants involving an expenditure of over $20,000,000. The people are industrious down there; there are no strikes, and thank God for it. The people honour their King and worship God, and if you can get a people to do that the country is safe. It would be well if the considerable number of people who have a habit of trying to get a living out of the other fellow's pocket would go to work and delve out an existence from the rich, fertile soil which is to be found in this country. I heard the member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) say that he was brought up on oatmeal and the Bible. Well, that is a pretty good diet and I want to say that if more people lived on such a diet they would come to a full realization of things and would know a little better what they were created for. It is said that mankind was created to glorify God, but I think that the percentage of those who do so outside the province of Quebec is very small indeed. There we teach the young people to take off their hats to their seniors. Now, I suppose I work as hard as any man in the country; when I get home I put in fifteen hours a day-go down to the mill or farm looking like a tramp, with ragged clothes on; yet the little children whom you meet take their caps off. I say that the people of the province of Quebec are going in the right direction, not only for the present, but for their eternal salvation.
Now, coming back to the immigfation policy of the Government, I was going to speak the other day when the Estimates of the Department of Immigration were before the House, hut the minister suddenly gave over to one of his colleagues and I did not get the opportunity. I have said a few things about the United States and Canada. Now, the most populous country in the world is not Canada and is not the United States; the most populous countries are found not in this hemisphere, hut in Europe, Asia and Africa. Some people think we can go on with this hateful talk about foreigners; that we can employ these people and pay them, and simply because they want to invest their money honestly in this country that we will make them subservient to our will and keep up a hatred. Why, Mr. Speaker, the thing is deplorable. We all believe in the fatherhood of God, and if we do we should believe in the brotherhood of man. If not, it would be a farce for the Speaker of this House to implore the divine aid and the divine guidance for our King and our country in the deliberations of Parliament. I know as clean people who have black skins as I do mean people who have white skins. If I run across the Japanese ambassador here, I think I have met a gentleman. We need to shake off some of these ideas; the people should realize their duty not only to themselves but to their families and to mankind in general.
I think it is tweny millions which is proposed to be spent on militia and naval affairs. Now, one would think we were trying to follow the great and populous United States. The United States would not sign the Peace Treaty so she braced up and said:	We have the money; we will
build a navy that will make the rest of the world get on their knees to us. Well, that is against the spirit of the age; it is against the spirit of the father of the Peace Treaty, ex-President William H. Taft.


An hon. MEMBER:: Wilson.


Willis Keith Baldwin: Ex-President William
H. Taft was the father of the League of Nations and the Peace Treaty. He stood upon the platform with President Wilson and at various meetings held throughout the country he advocated that policy. And what happened? About the time the United States elections were to come on some of the big politicians said to Mr. Taft:	Do
you remember that you were President of the United States by the vote of the Republican party? Withdraw your affiliations with' this Democratic ^President. From that time on, did William H. Taft advocate the League of Nations or, the Peace Treaty? No. So it is that politics and its intrigues serve to destroy the prospects of a people; it is the old question of the political game.
One of the ministers has suggested that it is difficult to forecast what the condition of Europe will he six months from now. It may be a raging tempest of war. Well, so far as-1 am concerned I declare against a policy of going over there if they want to keep up a raging tempest of war; I say, in that case let us stay on this side of the Atlantic. I do not want to speak on conscription now but I do want to say

that conscription cost the country probably half of its present debts. That noble, patriotic man, the late Minister of Militia who is now probably nearing his end, said: "We do not need conscription; more men are volunteering than I can equip." But the present Minister of Militia is broad and well-fed and he gets pretty chesty; he brings up that spirit of antagonism; he wants to devour some one. When a military machine is set up it has to do something, even if it comes to declaring war on a peaceful nation, as Germany did. Now, this business of annual drill is the biggest farce that has ever been known. I say without fear of contradiction that not two per cent of the men who were drilled in Canada at the annual drills before -the war were fitted physically or any other way to enter upon active military service. Why? Because they were made up of old men, men who were halt and blind-well, blind so far as their sense of duty went. That Christian gentleman, the member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) made some reference to-day to the doings in Victoria. With already three or four dry docks on the Pacific coast, one of them at Victoria. The Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Ballantynp) laughs; we may get after him by-and-by if the hour is not too late. If, there were three dry docks or two or only one, what would be the occasion for building a new one when we think of the tonnage that is lying idle at the docks in the different coastal towns of Canada and the United States? Building dry docks at this time when such a condition of things exists, is preposterous, but I do not want to discuss this matter which was so ably dealt with by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queens (Mr. Fielding).
The Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Calder) said that the hon. member for Stanstead would allow to come into Canada any law-abiding citizen.
I stand by that statement. Immigration is required if we are to produce sufficient traffic for the huge mileage of our railways and to develop the enormous extent of our country. If we cannot get revenue to pay the appalling amount of interest due on our public debt without ever thinking of paying it off, it will be a sad thing for we fathers to point out to our sons, the coming generation, that taxation is to be worse and worse as the years go by. We want to do something, not only to pay promptly the interest on the national debt, but to pay off a good sized lump sum of the debt each year under the present taxa-

tion. How can we do that with the population that we have at present? We must develop all our resources. We are told that Mackenzie, going down the Mackenzie river 130 years ago, found oil in that section of the country. I have statistics to show where we buy our gasolene from, and most of our money spent on gasolene goes to the United States. We have our oil wells up in the Mackenzie River district and we need a railway there to enable private enterprise to develop them. Of course the great Imperial Oil Company will put in their plant, but that will be another monopoly. If the Imperial Oil Company, the big child of the Standard Oil Company puts in a pipe line, you will not see cheaper oil. A railway must be built or some method of transportation provided. It would cost a great deal of money to put in canals or locks, but there should be some way of getting into that vast territory.
The hon. member for the Yukon (Mr. Thompson) entertained the House a few years ago with some wonderful statistics of the vast resources of the Yukon. How are we going to pay off this appalling debt and build up the country, and what hope of the future is there without development of our tremendous resources? Quebec alone is a good deal more than one-fifth the size of the United States. Our policy as regards immigration should be a broad one, and I have enough knowledge of the human race not to be discouraged. In the early days of the war we were told about the horrible Kaiser and his military machine, but the German people are fine people. When hon. members in this House speak about the horrible German and the horrible Austrian and look with scorn on anybody who sympathises with those people, I say that that was due to the German machine and I have respect for the people of Austria and Germany. We should imitate the spirit of Great Britain in that respect. Their policy is
1 a.m. to extend the hand of fellowship to the enemy when he is conquered. When she conquered this country she gave the conquered race their language and religion. Yet we * here, an insignificant number of people as compared with the great nations of the earth, are settling up a hatred for our former enemies. How can we ever expect to trade with them, to do business with them, to receive them in this country if we keep up that hatred? We would, win far more people if we held out a cordial hand.

I remember being in the western United States and seing people pouring in there with perhaps nothinb but a tin box or a red handkerchief to hold all their belongings, and yet they have become good respectable citizens of that country. God Created.the Germans and Austrians just as much as ourselves and we have no right to set up this hatred against them. If we have an unruly, dishonest criminal in this country, we should punish him quickly. We must adopt a new policy of immigration. Who in this country has backbone enough to adopt some principle of common sense in this matter? Are we to go on playing politics without any sound business principle to go on? It is time that we began to realize what a government is for, what civilization is for. We have sent out missionaries throughout the broad world to Christianize the people of the dark spots but we at home are playing a game that is wholly dishonest, wholly unpatriotic, wholly disloyal to our country and wholly nonsensical. Let our leaders grasp the situation and deal with it as they should.
My observations are probably very much distorted; but they come from my heart, and I shall be glad if what I have said, when it is placed on Hansard, does some good to this world that is so much troubled and in which there is so much hatred, so much enmity and so much despair.
Hon. C. C. BALLANTYNE (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) moved the adjournment of the debate.


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Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned.

Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate requesting this House to give leave to the Honourable Thomas Alexander Crerar, M.P., to attend and give evidence before the special committee of the Senate appointed to inquire into and report at this session upon the conditions which are responsible for a large portion of our export trade (more especially the products of the West) being routed via American instead of Canadian ports.



WAYS AND MEANS RESOLUTIONS

Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: That 300 copies of the Ways and Means resolutions submitted to the House on the 9th
instant he printed forthwith, 600 in English and 200 in French, and that rule 71 be suspended in respect thereto.
On the motion of the Hon. C. C. Bal-lantyne the House adjourned at 1.07 a.m. Wednesday.
"Wednesday May 11, 1921.